Tarnished HeartGold
by GaliCat
Summary: A series of strange events breaks up the Team Rocket Trio. Meowth will find truth. Jessie may find death. And James must find courage to save them both... but can anyone save James? Rated T for some violence and creepiness. Multiple crossover.
1. Rocketed Away

**Author's Note: I don't own Pokemon. Obviously. Anyway, this might not look like a T-rated fic at first, but it will get darker later on. Honestly, I rated it T to be safe, since it gets a little... freaky from here.**

**Fantasy buffs may recognize the place James has been zapped to, but for now I'm keeping it under wraps. Let me just say that in this story, the Pokemon world is connected to other "fictional" universes by mysterious means, and that will come into play in later stories, God willing. And I think He is. But enough about that. On with the story.**

Chapter One

_What am I doing here?_ James wondered.

The last thing he remembered was some sort of blast, like that twerp's Pikachu "blasting" him and his teammates "off again" into the wild blue yonder. But there had been no electric shock; just bright light and a strange humming noise.

_Am I dead?_ he wondered.

Whatever else he was, he was also completely surrounded by trees. _Completely_. It was almost like a Grass-type trainer's dream and nightmare rolled into one. The world around him was lush, green, and growing; a little _too_ green, James thought nervously. As an all-too-experienced Pokemon trainer (and all-too-incompetent Pokemon thief), he knew by instinct that if he was seeing too much of one color at one time for it to be natural, then either he'd just been zapped by some rival Pokemon, or he was stark raving out of his mind. Probably both. It gave the term "hedged in" a completely ironic meaning.

Whatever else the place was, it was quiet; a little TOO quiet, if James had anything to say about it. No other life seemed to stir among the ancient trees or in the many deep pools of water surrounding – and nourishing – those trees. No Pokemon whatsoever, not even a Wurmple in the branches or a Magikarp in the pools. Still, James somehow had the innate feeling that, wherever he was, he was being watched.

_But by what?_ he wondered. _There's nobody here_. That was a puzzle; and he wasn't even sure he wanted to solve it. Anything that could live here and manage to stay completely unnoticed could also be dangerous. And only Uxie could know if it was friendly or not.

And he'd never caught an Uxie. Not even close. (He'd tried once, but it went without saying that the Being of Wisdom had a mental advantage. All he'd succeeded in doing was getting himself and his teammates nearly drowned, which was, for Team Rocket, an occupational hazard. Actually, Team Rocket met with a lot of occupational hazards. Life was odd that way.)

For all he knew, there could very well **be** an Uxie in this place; there were certainly enough pools to house a thousand legendary water Pokemon and leave room to spare.

And then – he heard something. It sounded like a flute playing from a long distance away. He didn't know what it was, nor if he should be running towards it or away from it, but it seemed to be the only other sign of possible sentience in this strange place.

Still, it never hurt to be cautious, and it usually did hurt to not be, at least in his experience. James' hand strayed to his PokeBelt, where he kept a set of six PokeBalls. Currently most of them were empty, but he had captured one particular specimen shortly after their disastrous encounter against Team Plasma, and it was the only Pokemon he had on hand. He opened the ball, calling out, "Yamask! I choose you!"

That Ketchum twerp might have laughed to hear his nemesis quoting him, but he wasn't there to hear. Hopefully. James had learned long ago to never, _ever_, count on the obvious. Although, honestly, when would Ash ever have the time or inclination to even learn how to play a flute?

_It's probably the cry of some sort of rare or legendary Pokemon,_ he thought, _maybe even a mythical one! I sure hope Yamask can help me catch it!_ Actually, he wasn't really sure of that; in truth, he'd never succeeded in permanently catching a Pokemon in battle, although he'd certainly tried. All his Pokemon back home had either been given to him, or had come to him of their own free will. Rather strange, considering his particular line of work.

Yamask appeared in a burst of energy, holding its trademark mask in the coil of its tail. It then proceeded to, like Jame's Carnivine before it, attatch itself to its trainer's head and lick him vigorously.

"GAAAHH!" James screamed, shaking frantically. – He eventually realized that he had nothing to fear, that Yamask was just being friendly, but he'd once had a very bad experience being licked by Jessie's Haunter, which was, like Yamask, a ghost-type Pokemon, but had left him physically shaking for three weeks solid. He hadn't been able to show his face in front of his boss Giovanni, and on top of that, it was the day before his performance review (not that there was much to review), so he had to ask Jessie to substitute for him in one of her famous disguises. Jessie had argued that it was her performance review as well; who would substitute for HER?

James had pointed out (while still shaking) that if Jessie had been able to control her own Haunter, this whole mess wouldn't have even happened.

In the end, Meowth volunteered to go in disguised as Jessie, which surprisingly worked. At least, James thought it had worked, but had later heard Giovanni muttering about how some of his employees apparently thought he was an idiot. He was at least smart enough not to tell this to Meowth, who preferred to believe itself to be the best actor of the three, and also happened to have very sharp claws and know the move Fury Swipe. And anyway, who else had a Meowth that could speak human language in the first place? Not Ash Ketchum, for one thing.

James was brought back to the present as Yamask tugged on his face, then motioned for him to follow it deeper into the woods, in the direction of the sound. Just James' plan. Great minds think alike,he supposed.

Or did they?

James felt oddly in conflict with both himself and this mysterious place. One part of him longed to stay forever, even if he starved to death and his body rotted to nothing, just so he could be HERE, in this place of calm and stillness... far, FAR away from the commands of Jessie and Giovanni. True, it was somewhat chilling to be somewhere where nothing ever happened at all, but compared to all the things that HAD happened in his lifetime, it was probably better that way. On the other hand, just thinking of Jessie and Giovanni reminded him that he SHOULDN'T be here, that he didn't DESERVE to be here, that no doubt something terrible would happen to this place and to himself if he remained here, just as it always had happened before.

Even after Giovanni had promoted the Team Rocket trio to advanced agents, James had secretly had the growing suspicion that things were going to go horribly wrong again, and this time, he was right as usual. After the humiliating incident with Team Plasma, he, Jessie, and Meowth had been FIRED, no questions asked, no mercy given. Up until his unexpected departure to wherever-this-was, James had been with his partners in crime, trying to worm their way back to their former boss and win back his favor. And now he was in some sort of enchanted forest, feeling some sort of inexplicable combination of joyfulness and dread, and Yamask was tugging at his sleeve and chirping loudly for him to follow it deeper into the woods.

James sighed. There was nothing to do but follow.

* * *

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In an unknown part of Unova, two miserable figures were also attempting to follow James, but had obviously lost sight of their quarry. And on top of that, it was totally miserable weather to lose sight of anything in, much less a human being that's supposed to be leading you somewhere. Jessie secretly hoped that once she and Meowth found James, they could make him every bit as miserable as they were miserable now, because it would just serve him right, that ditcher!

Meowth, on the other hand, just wanted to find James and lose the weather. Neither appeared to be happening anytime soon.

"JAAAAAAAAMES!" they both yelled, with Jessie volunteering an extra, "Where is that useless piece of Magikarp crap, anyway?"

"I dunno, Jess." replied Meowth, pulling a stolen cloak over itself to shield from the pouring rain. "Hopefully, outta earshot!"

"Well, he is!" argued Jessie. "Leaving us two in the middle of this storm for no reason at all, with no shelter or anything and completely lost in some strange town on a continent we've never even been to before..."

Meowth looked around. "Well, if he's smart, then, I guess he IS outta earshot. What makes ya think he'll wanna come back ta us if we're callin' him names?"

"Because he's a loser and he'll come running because it's the only thing he knows how to do without getting himself killed," Jessie muttered. "You know, now that I mention it, I'm actually starting to _worry_ about him."

Meowth was starting to worry about _Jessie_, but he was at least smart enough not to say so in so many words. "Mebbe we should slow down fer now an' foind shelter, ya dig?"

He was absolutely mortified when Jessie replied, "Ugh! I'm not digging any shelter in this mud!"

"Yeesh, dat was _suppoised_ to be a _human expression_, Jess. I thought ya'd know dat!"

"Well, I can't think in this weather. And even worse, it's messing up my hair! Isn't there ANY building in this part of town that's open for business tonight?"

That was a very good question. As a matter of fact, it appeared that the town itself hadn't been "open for business" for several decades. The buildings were all run down, and if there had been any signs of habitation, the storm had washed them all away. Still, Jessie and Meowth were desperate for shelter, and eventually they found an old but apparently cared-for wooden building that had a wildly flickering but somewhat-working neon sign over its door. _Darkat and Mongoose – Show and Aprijuice_, it read. The duo wasn't sure what an open business would be doing in a ghost town, but there was a light coming from inside the building, so they went in.

It appeared to be, of all things, an roomy, old-fashioned diner and juice bar, run entirely by Pokemon. Even the clientele was mostly Pokemon, although there appeared to be the odd human or two in a few dark corners. Strangely enough, there weren't just Unova Pokemon, either; there were Kanto Pokemon, Johto Pokemon, Hoenn Pokemon, Sinnoh Pokemon, and even a few species that didn't appear to be native to anywhere they'd been before. Meowth himself was wondering where he'd seen the bartender's species before. It looked more like a plain brown Watchog than anything else, but it clearly wasn't. Would life's myriad mysteries ever be solved?

As Meowth scanned the room, it noticed more: a Jynx waitress by a table; a small group of Ekans close to the stage in what Meowth supposed was called the band box, softly shaking their tails like maracas; and a Venusaur sitting by the table and trying to flirt with the Jynx. There was even a Rhyperior bouncer that threw that Venusaur clear out of the diner, right on his blossom, which was rather impressive for a Ground/Rock Pokemon against a Grass/Poison Pokemon. Meowth made a note to be extra careful NOT to get in trouble. The ejected Venusaur righted himself, then sat out in the rain and sulked, quietly vowing revenge.

"Did you notice that Rhyperior's power?" Jessie whispered to Meowth.

"Yeah... don't get any ideas, Jess, dat bloke looks vicious!"

"It's better than vicious, Meowth." Yen signs practically appeared in Jessie's eyes as she spoke. "It's a SHINY Rhyperior! Just imagine, if we could-"

"Nope. Nuh-uh. Not a chance in a Chansey! Dat type of Pokemon shoots Geodude outta its cannons fer FUN! We'd be chopped Poffin fer sure!"

"Speaking of Poffin," said the Jynx waitress (in Poke-speak, of course, which was more of a psychic dialect than anything else), "would you two like to order?"

Meowth blushed suddenly. "Uh, don't worry, lady, I've got dis human wrapped around my pinky claw. Nothin's gonna happen to yoir... um... big-bouldered... assoiciate dere." He had a quick conference with Jessie. "All right, den: two dry Aprijuices, barkeep. Hey, wait a sec, how's dat possible?"

"How's WHAT possible?" the Rhyperior asked suddenly, cutting in on the conversation. "That we serve dry Aprijuice, or that our barkeep is a mongoose?"

D'oh! Meowth should have remembered from that Gastly incident on Madien's Peak that the creature was called a mongoose. (In Meowth's defense, he had been busy in mortal combat with a not-so-innocent ball of catnip.) At least, that had been the Gastly's cry when it had impersonated the creature; since a mongoose wasn't technically a Pokemon, its actual cry probably wasn't "Mongoose!" – was it? How could an ordinary mongoose take drink orders from Pokemon, anyway?

Meowth guessed he was going to find out.

The mongoose worked in silence, occasionally giving the Rhyperior an angry look behind his back, then produced the Aprijuice. The Jynx then brought the Aprijuice to Jessie and Meowth, commenting (as Meowth translated) that the "show" was about to begin.

And the show DID begin. Up on the stage, a group of Roserade stepped up to the curtain, dancing in a double line and flailing the red and blue bouquets they had for hands. Meowth recognized the Sweet Scent ability, which annoyed him, because he'd had a few rough instances with that ability, but heck with it, it smelled so GOOD!

Later, he would slap himself for letting his guard down so easily, but for now, he was enjoying himself.

Then the curtains parted, and in rode Darkat herself, atop a Zebstrika that clearly did not want to be ridden on. She was a glamorous Purrloin, dressed in a jacket and hat that appeared to be made of genuine Honchkrow plumage, and wearing makeup that would make the most audacious Mr. Mime blush thoroughly with shame. As the Zebstrika bucked and reared, the Purrloin kept perfect balance, even balancing upright on one foreleg on occasion. Even when her Electric-type steed was shooting out lightning bolts, the Purrloin was unmovable – she even seemed to enjoy the danger!

And she was singing. In English.

PURR-fect English.

Meowth was practically intoxicated with awe. What he failed to realize was that, thanks to what had been inserted into his drink, he and Jessie were also intoxicated with something else entirely.

* * *

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When Meowth regained consciousness, his first thought was, _Holey smokes, when did I nod off?_

His second thought was that his head hurt, that it was pounding worse than it had been when he'd accidentally gotten his bronze coin charm stuck inside his forehead. When he tried to raise his paw to feel his throbbing forehead, a terrible realization hit him: he couldn't move his arms.

Or his legs.

Or anything at all.

He was trapped in a violently pulsing electric field in a very dark catacomb, watched from the other side of the field by an evilly grinning Jolteon and an equally sinister-looking Machoke. Both looked as if they could do some serious damage to his head if they should so desire, and Meowth was experienced enough to know that these types probably would.

Meowth instantly wondered where Jessie and James were, then realized that he couldn't even turn his head to look. And anyway, James had vanished long before they'd checked into...

DARKAT AND MONGOOSE SHOW AND APRIJUICE?

Meowth tried to speak, but apparently his throat muscles were just as paralyzed as all his others. He could only watch with horror – unblinking – as the Jolteon and the Machoke turned and saluted at a dark figure coming down a nearby corridor.

If he could have, Meowth would have gulped. As it was, he simply thought the gulp in his mind as the figure came into his forced field of vision.

It was the shiny Rhyperior.


	2. Wild Celebi Appeared!

**Author's Notes: Well, looks like after too long an absence from , ol' GaliCat can't even figure out how to read the reviews of her own story! So, anyway, here's a bit more info for those of you who've actually borne with me this far (which I'm not sure if anyone actually READ this yet, since I posted the first chapter at 4 AM).**

**Q: Where and when exactly is this story set?**

**A: As the opening sequence hints, sometime after the cancelled Team Rocket vs. Team Plasma incident, and after James catches Yamask. Since I obviously haven't seen it (in fact, I've yet to watch even one episode of B&W, although I have the very first ep on DVD from Nintendo Power), I'm pretty much relying on luck and Bulbapedia. I don't know exactly where Darkat and Mongoose is built, but it's somewhere off the beaten path in Unova. I intentionally left it vague because I didn't want to tie myself down to a location when I didn't even know where it was.**

**Q: Did the Team Rocket Trio really get fired in-continuity, then?**

**A: Honestly, that's what I thought at one point, and at this point, I'm still not sure, but I'm going with it for the story's sake. After all, this is going to WILDLY deviate from the course of the show (unless 4kids knows something I don't know).**

**Q: Why is it titled "Tarnished HeartGold" when it's set on Unova?**

**A: Actually, it's not set ENTIRELY on Unova, as you'll find out – James' opening sequences aren't even in the Pokemon world at all, really. (Ooh, spoily spoily!) Which leads me to the next question:**

**Q: Um, you DO know that Crossovers go in the Crossover section, right?**

**A: Now I do. *blushes as she looks at Antoine and the All-Neopian-Rejects, which STILL doesn't have a second chapter* Yeah, first of all, I don't think it was there when I first signed on here a few years ago. Second, this story isn't a PURE crossover, but it does have a few minor (and major, yet majorly overlooked) elements from the Narnia series to "ground" it in a bigger multiverse (cookies to whoever guessed James' location from chapter one!). This will play out in the sequel, where – ooh, but I'm not telling!**

**Q: OOOH you made a mistake here! (quotes mistake)**

**A: Hey! "Oooh" is MY line! But seriously. Sadly, I haven't exactly been able to live out my PokeFan dreams since the beginning of the series (long story) and have only really become an active fan within the past two years. As such, I simply couldn't catch up on every single episode of the entire anime, and really, I have better things to do than watch TV for hours and hours and hours (such as use the computer for hours and hours and hours, play video games for hours and hours and hours, and write for hours and hours and hours). So, once again, I rely on luck and Bulbapedia. Next question.**

**Q: Is Ash going to show up?**

**A: Originally, yes, but I cut his plotline out of the story when I realized that it didn't really add anything necessary. I don't mind Ash, really, but this plot centers on the Team Rocket Trio. 'Nuff said.**

**Q: Where does Celebi figure into this story?**

**A: Read on and find out...**

Chapter Two

As James entered the clearing with his Yamask, he stared with astonishment. There, gathered together around a large, shimmering lake, were _dozens_ of Celebi.

_Dozens upon dozens _of Celebi.

They were all in a circle, watching a rose-toned Celebi – a shiny? – play a set of once-golden, now-tarnished pan pipes. The music was hauntingly familiar, yet like nothing James could remember having ever heard in his life. It seemed... perfect, somehow.

Too perfect.

And then, as if on cue, a single Celebi took one passing glance at James and loudly screeched "BIII!", sending the entire flock darting into the trees until not a single one could be seen.

James almost slapped himself, right then and there. Of COURSE the Celebi would run from him; they were very shy Pokemon, and he was obviously not a Celebi. It didn't take an Uxie to figure that out. Not to mention that the one and only time he'd ever seen a Celebi in real life, he'd been trying to help the Iron-Masked Maurader kidnap it, and in the end it had ended very badly for all involved. Including the Celebi.

Yamask looked around the now empty clearing, chirping confusedly. Where was everybody?

Jessie awoke in a small, deep, and very muddy underground pit and found herself with a pounding headache. "Anyone get the number of that Pikachu?" she muttered groggily, then suddenly snapped into attention when a comparatively large bagful of smashed Chesto berries was dumped out over her head.

"Rise and shine, you filthy mortal vermin!" called out a distastefully cheerful voice from above. Jessie looked up, saw was what was looking down at her, and promptly looked down again. But then she looked back up, because she simply could not believe what she was seeing standing on the large stone ledge above her, leering at her. It was a humanoid Exeggutor, complete with branchlike arms with overgrown thorn-claws, and its single head sporting a leafy green mustache.

It seemed to be built particularly like a certain deadbeat ex-team-member she'd known, or so she thought. "Oh, PLEASE," Jessie shouted at it. "James, if this whole thing is your idea of a practical joke, then you need to steal yourself a sense of humor. That costume is transparent as a Kecleon's backside!"

The Exeggutor seemed to find this amusing. "I don't know who James may be," it laughed, "but maybe he needs to _steal_ himself a smarter girlfriend. I'm no mere costumed _human_. No, I am a far superior Pokemorph!"

Jessie's eyes grew wide as saucers. Not that this poseur was a Pokemorph – she knew what those were; they were human-Pokemon hybrids that Team Rocket scientists had tried and failed to develop as part of their world domination schemes – but that it was vain enough to think that it was better than she was. THAT was unforgivable. "You let me out of this pit right now, vermin, or I'll be forced to show you which of us is superior!" She paused a moment. "And James is NOT my boyfriend!"

Kind of idiotic, considering her position. But what could Exeggutor do to her from over there, she thought, drop another sack of berries over her head?

A fatal mistake, as it was. First of all, because Jessie had underestimated the Exeggutor's powers. Second, because now said Exeggutor was dumping a sack of something else over her head, something slimy and chunky that smelled like raw sewage but had a distinctly different consistency (don't ask how she knew that).

"How about this," the Pokemorph taunted. "YOU get out of the pit yourself, and THEN I'll beat you back into the dust you came from!" It chuckled cruely. "Now, I'd suggest you eat your dinner as soon as possible, because it's certainly not going to get any less disgusting!"

As it stalked off chuckling to itself, Jessie began to swear loudly. And, in classic Team Rocket tradition, she did it in rhyme. Unfortunately, it was completely lost on the Exeggute Pokemorph, who didn't really care. After all, it hadn't even cooked the disgusting stew in the first place, and IT didn't need to eat it to live.

Jessie did notice that, shortly after the Exeggutor left, a withered-looking Snivy had stuck its snout over the edge of the pit and looked down at her. "Vee," it said sadly, and then it was gone. What that had meant, she couldn't even begin to guess.

But there was someone else in the muddy pit that could.

"If you're not going to eat that," Darkat said from the shadows, "I'd advise you tell Snivy that you DID eat it. He cooks all those meals himself, you know, and under duress, too. And if it helps, he probably hates that Exeggute-headed freak of nature even more than you do. Now, could you help me with these chains? I presume you have a spare hairpin on you?"

Jessie smiled for perhaps the first time in a long time. The multitalented Purrloin was just a few feet away, and Jessie herself wasn't in any chains. "Do I have a hairpin, you ask? What, you think this hairdo happens by itself?"

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Meowth, still in the electric field, was stunned to recognize the Rhyperior bouncer from before. Even worse, the Rhyperior seemed to recognize HIM, and for some reason had developed an irrational disliking to the talking cat-pokemon. "Well, looky here," said Rhyperior in Poke-speak to the Jolteon and the Machoke. "It's another linguistic freak! So," he said, addressing Meowth, "What'ja think of our little opening act las' night?"

Meowth would have commented that Darkat had been amazing, and that he bet that she could've whipped all three thugs with her claws clipped, but there was the small matter of being paralyzed completely.

Rhyperior chuckled. "Darkat's sure somethin', roight?" Meowth bristled inside to hear Rhyperior mocking his accent. "I'd say she speaks human a whole lot better than, say, a certain low-life alleycat we know." He leaned closer. "And by the way, that's what you are now. Your precious human master is as good as _**chopped Poffin**_ by now."

Meowth was deeply, deeply insulted that Rhyperior had even considered referring to ANY human as Meowth's master. All the same, Meowth was genuinely upset about Jessie. First James had dissappeared, now Jess was in trouble? For all he knew, they could both be dead by now!

Meowth knew what being an alleycat was like, too. He wasn't fond of it. Not that he COULD be, NOW; even if he somehow managed to escape, he was too rare a species in Unova to go uncaught for any period of time. Or was he? Where exactly did all these non-Unova Pokemon come from, anyway, and why were they here of all places?

Where WAS "here," anyway?

"Well, enough with the pleasantries," said Rhyperior smugly. "Luthor!" he yelled over his shoulder. "Get your fluffy butt over here!"

A bedraggled-looking Luxray rushed in, wearing an extremely grimy lab coat that resembled a human tailcoat worn over the back, which allowed him to go on all fours as Luxray usually do. His somewhat-graying mane seemed to be generating stray sparks of electricity, and his eyes had a slightly insane look to them behind his round, steel-rimmed glasses. He didn't look like much of a contender in the strength department, but Meowth had the feeling that anyone who tangled with this Luxray would be in for a shock. Metaphorically speaking, no pun intended.

The Rhyperior motioned toward Meowth. "Scan him, Luthor" the Drill Pokemon ordered. "Find out if he's holding what we're looking for."

Luthor gave the Rhyperior a dirty look (less withering than the one that Mongoose had given him earlier at the diner), then stood back and stared intently at Meowth, looking not simply at the scratch cat Pokemon, but _through_ him. Meowth could practically feel the tingle, although that could have just been the electric field around him. Kind of freaky how Luxray could see right through solid objects, Meowth thought; then a horrible thought came to him – what if this one read minds too? After all, anything was possible in this world. Not that Meowth had anything in particular to hide (besides being an ex-secret-agent of Team Rocket and all, and all those dirty deeds he'd helped Jessie and James with, but that was another story); but it was the principle of the thing.

Suddenly, Luthor jumped back in shock, horror, and even awe. His mane stuck out at completely perpendicular angles to his skin, giving him a rather foofy appearance. That appearance was made more frightening by the hugeness of Luthor's widened eyes, which sparked with more electricity than the tails of twenty overcharged Ampharos.

"WELL?" yelled Rhyperior, even as Machoke and Jolteon cruelly laughed at Luthor's expense.

"He has the HeartGold," the Luxray whispered. "But getting it off of him will be easier said than done."


	3. Gotcha!

**Author's Notes: Okay, finally I get to read the reviews, and the first question I find is, "Is James dead?" Well, the answer to that is: not at the moment. Don't you hate these vague teasers?**

**So, yeah, things are really heating up for Meowth and Jessie, aren't they? That's why this next chapter focuses entirely on JAMES. Yep. Don't worry, I've got plans for Meowth and Jessie, and for the epynomous HeartGold (which Meowth seems to have without even knowing he has it, assuming that we can trust a Luxray named Luthor. Who caught that joke there?)**

Chapter Three

_Have I gone crazy?_ James thought as he searched the clearing. There didn't seem to be a single Celebi left for miles around, yet they certainly hadn't time-traveled; James would have noticed the blue energy waves caused by the journey. So how exactly could a million Celebi hide in a forest and never be found?

Yamask seemed equally confused, but it didn't appear to be bothered about it. In fact, it was acting like it wanted James to think it didn't care at all, but James had the feeling it DID care. After all, if they didn't get SOME sort of help in this forest, then how would they survive?

James glanced around, then ducked behind a tree, yanking Yamask along with him. It was kind of stupid, trying to hide from a crowd of Pokemon he couldn't see, but he certainly didn't have any better ideas at the moment (or ever). "All right, Yamask," he whispered. "The only easy way out of here is by using Celebi's time-travel. Which means you and I are going to catch a Celebi. Got it?"

Yamask looked skeptical.

"Yes, I know there's about a million gazillions out there, but we only need to CATCH _**one**_. This just improves our odds."

Yamask still wasn't buying it.

James sighed. "Look, all you have to do is wear it down a bit, and then I'll throw the Poke-Ball, and we'll have a Celebi of our very own. You'll have a new sibling! Won't that be nice?"

Yamask gave James an impossibly sarcastic look, then started rummaging around in James' pockets, looking for food.

James felt like an idiot. Of COURSE Yamask would disapprove; considering the circumstances of Yamask's capture, it probably could barely believe that James could even stood to Jessie's level. (Jessie had wanted to capture Yamask by battling her Woobat against it, but James had intervened.) "Or, yeah, we COULD just set some food out and see if one shows – HEY STOPPIT! That's not food, that's my bottle cap collection!"

...a bottle cap collection that was quickly dissappearing down Yamask's gullet. _Lovely. I knew I never should've brought my entire collection to Unova with me._

_Assuming this is still Unova._

The question paralyzed James' mental processes as if a Raichu had blasted him to the noggin. Was this still Unova? Was it Unova in the past, or the future? Was it another dimension entirely? Or had he finally snapped from ThunderShock overexposure?

At any rate, he was of no mind to notice the lone Celebi sneaking up behind him until Yamask yelped a far-too-late warning as James got entangled in more vines than he could have counted even if he'd seen them coming, which he hadn't.

James found himself looking eye to upside-down eye with an oddly familiar-looking Celebi. It took a while for him to figure out that the Celebi was not, in fact, upside-down; rather, HE was. He was dangling from a Silcoon-like entanglement of vines, which showed him how a Tangela must feel but otherwise didn't help him in the slightest for that moment.

"HEY!" yelled James. "What did I ever do to YOU?"

Celebi gave him a glare that seemed to say, _What indeed? Oh, that's right; you've probably done so many nasty things to Pokemon that you can't even remember me if you try to._

And then, James did remember.

Oh, snap.

The Iron-Masked Marauder.

The Dark Balls.

THAT Celebi.

Yamask immediately started jabbering at the Celebi – "Yah! Yah! YAMASK!" – and motioning towards its trainer, but James didn't care. _I knew this would come back to haunt me,_ he thought in despair. _Just my rotten luck. I've had nothing but rotten luck since the first time I saw that horrible Jessiebelle woman and started this whole thing. On the bright side, Celebi can't do anything worse to me than Jessiebelle would have. If that even IS a bright side._

Jessiebelle had been the reason why James had run away from home in the first place. While James had originally fallen head-over-heels for her, she'd soon proved to be a shrewish, commanding woman who didn't give a pair of Growlithe's kidneys about her potential beau's feelings. James' parents, however, were determined to marry him off to her, which was why he'd escaped while he could, leaving his enormous fortune behind (but bringing his bottle cap collection, of course). He'd eventually met Jessie, whose mother had been a top agent of Team Rocket and who was determined to follow in said mother's footsteps, and the rest was history. Oddly enough, Jessie bore more than a passable resemblance to Jessiebelle, which may have explained why James at once both cared deeply about her and was scared like heck of her. Life was weird.

And life didn't get much weirder than hanging upside-down from a makeshift sack of vines and listening to two Pokemon in a heated discussion, presumably regarding his fate. Yamask, James guessed, was telling Celebi that James wasn't really all that bad, and Celebi was obviously telling Yamask that, actually, yes, James WAS that bad. And the worst part was, James knew that in all honesty, he'd have to side with Celebi.

Not that he was about to. "Um, guys?" he said, managing to move his chin loose enough from the vines to speak out of his mouth. "Look, I'd just like to say a few-"

Celebi gave James a look that said... nothing.

"A few words, okay? Sorry to interrupt; not that I know what you're saying, but please... hear me out, all right? I'm... SORRY, okay?"

Celebi's look softened, but was still unreadable. Yamask, however, was completely befuddled, and gave a chirp that sounded a little like, "Why?"

"I'm sorry... look, if I'd know how that mission was going to turn out-" Oh, what was he saying? Of COURSE he'd known how the mission would turn out: just as badly as all the others up to that point. What he couldn't have imagined was that the Celebi would suffer the worst out of the deal, since usually their intended victims escaped relatively unharmed, but in Celebi's case, things hadn't exactly worked out that way. Well, actually, they had in the end, but it was what happened just before the end that was so terrible.

"What I mean to say is..." Without realizing it, James broke into a cold sweat. What was he thinking? He couldn't explain away his actions to THIS Celebi, not when its husky exterior still bore scars from its literal withering away from the effects of the Marauder's Dark Ball. James had watched everything from what he had believed was a safe distance, and he'd seen the Ketchum twerp holding Celebi's body, desperately trying to heal it in the Lake of Life. There was only one explanation to why the Lake of Life hadn't replenished the Grass-type's life force: Celebi had no longer had any life force to replenish.

_We KILLED it._

James still didn't fully understand how Celebi had come back to life; his memory was a bit fuzzy on that point, and what he could remember didn't make any sense; just some spiritual chanting to music that he wasn't even sure had a tune, and what had looked like a whole bunch of Celebi floating around.

Strange music, and Celebi _en masse_. Oddly similar to what he'd seen just now, before... but never mind that. He had more pressing matters on his mind, such as how the heck he was going to get out of this mess of vines unharmed, if at all possible.

And then he realized that, while he was still in midair, he was no longer touching any vines at all!

Celebi and Yamask had a bit of a giggle as James floundered around in midair, expecting at any moment to come crashing down to earth again. James was actually held quite securely in Celebi's telekinetic grip, the result of a Psychic-type battle move that was oddly called Confusion, maybe because that was what in invariably caused to those who tried to explain how it worked. "I'm free?" he asked, as confused as a Psyduck with a double migraine. "Yaaah! Put me down! Put me down! I surrender!" (There was really no need to surrender at that moment, but James was so much in a jumble, he could barely even remember which way was up.) "I'll do anything you want, just put me DOWN-!"

Celebi set him down right-side up, fortunately. Then it looked him deep in the eyes. Yamask, still not sure of what was happening, immediately checked James for wounds. James himself could only stare at the Celebi, who seemed to be studying him intently, trying to figure out if there was any truth to his words.

And then, when James was paying more attention to Celebi and no attention to Yamask, Yamask suddenly put its mask over James' face.

James instinctively recoiled in horror – that mask felt terrible! It felt like it had been carved out of solid bone, and it was cold as granite on his face. AND it smelled something awful – like rotting leaves and dead flesh, which was not a pleasant combination to have smack in your face without warning. So no one could honestly blame James for screaming his lungs out.

_Quiet down!_ came a voice inside James' head. The voice seemed oddly familiar. _I'm not going to hurt you!_

It took a short moment for James to quiet down, and another short moment for him to realize that he hadn't WANTED to quiet down, that it had been just as involuntary as his original scream, but instead of sprouting from his base instincts, it had sprouted from the command of the voice, which was _gently_ impressing itself on James' psyche.

That was when James realized that the voice was of his Yamask.

_It's about time,_ thought Yamask toward James. _About time that we can actually talk to each other, I mean. Celebi has... said things about you, things I'd rather not believe. But a Psychic-type knows things like that about people and Pokemon. I should know. I've been both._

James was about to ask what Yamask meant, but then he remembered. Of course! He'd already known that Yamasks arose from the spirits of deceased humans buried in certain parts of Unova, which was kind of creepy once he thought about it. The thought of someday becoming a Pokemon himself was less than reassuring, all things considered.

_Hey, that's getting personal!_ Yamask said grumpily. _I have feelings, you know._

Great. Now he'd insulted his own Pokemon without even meaning to. Not a great sign of being able to work things out with Celebi.

_You're right, _said Yamask._ You should speak with Celebi now. She's the one who asked me to put my mask on you so we could communicate, after all._

So now he knew that Celebi was a _she_, and that she was willing to talk to him. James wondered if Celebi had ever had a slab of what seemed like rotting meat on her face.

_That's not rotting meat causing the smell, that's ectoplasm, _Celebi "said" to James, speaking into his mind through the mask. _How vulgar, the thought! Considering where that mask has been and all..._

She shook herself. _Never mind. Now, 'James', please come with me if you want to live._

Not the most heartening words James had heard all day.

"What the heck are you TALKING ABOUT?"

_Just follow._

"Follow what? I can't see a thing!"

_Trust Yamask to guide you._

James wanted to just yank Yamask's mask clear off his face, and he knew he could probably do it, too – Yamask wasn't impressing itself with a full possession, just a gentle guidance – but what could he have done then, lost in the middle of an endless forest against a Legendary that, he knew from personal experience, could level said forest?

And besides, James certainly DID want to live. Badly.

He sighed a little too loudly. "All right, all right, little lady. I'm _coming_."


	4. This Won't End Well, Will It?

**Author's Notes: It's amazing how many people have added this to their Watch list or Favorited it. This is a bit of a darker story than what I'm "used to" writing, but it's the story that's in my heart and won't go away. I'm glad so many of you like it!**

**Yes, Blufair, Yamask's mask IS awesomely disturbing... it was actually what originally raised the rating to T. I figured, Pokemon shows all these ghost-type characters like Yamask, but it doesn't really go so far as to show what it's like to be, y'know, under that mask, see? And I figured, it's gotta be disgusting wearing some dead person's face over your own. Watching an anime or playing a video game, you probably wouldn't get that sensation, but I was able to go over-the-top with it in story form. And, yeah, Jessie swearing in rhyme... that, I figured, would be so HER. Naturally, I'm not printing what she said, but it was pretty vicious.**

**So, Surih, to answer YOUR question ("Is James in limbo?") – well, maybe he is and maybe he isn't. It's hard to tell, isn't it? In the next couple chapters, James' location and full situation **_**should**_** be cleared up, but he won't be out of the woods yet. (If you'll pardon the expression.)**

Chapter Four

The shiny Rhyperior gave Luthor a cold and furious look. "What do you mean, we can't get the HeartGold off that stupid little Meowth?"

Meowth was good and ready to be offended in a "Dem's fightin' woids!" kind of way, but unfortunately he STILL couldn't move. Oddly enough, he couldn't even seem to breathe, yet obviously he was still alive and mentally functioning. What had that Jolteon DONE to him, anyway? This was even worse than being put on hold over Pokedex by Team Rocket's tech support. Which, incidentally, was one reason why their machines usually malfunctioned in the worst manner possible under the given circumstances.

"Oh, that's no mere Meowth, trust me," said Luthor the Luxray, pulling himself to a standing position on his hind legs and flexing his paws. "That's probably the most dangerous creature known to Pokemon-kind, although it doesn't even know it just yet. It's..." He paused dramatically. "...a Missingno."

There was a collective gasp from everyone else in the chamber. That is, there would have been, but Meowth was still unable to breathe, so there was just a collective gasp from ALMOST everyone else in the chamber.

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James was just about ready to gasp for breath himself. Not just because there was still a somewhat stifling Yamask mask over his face (which was still the worst experience of his entire life, and that was saying something), but because Celebi had led him on what he could only describe as a wild Zangoose chase. And to make matters worse, he'd been completely blinded throughout the whole thing (Arceus, he hated that mask!), and if it hadn't been for Celebi's guidance, he'd have run into at least twice as more trees as he already had, and fallen into three times as many pools as he suspected he must have.

"Are you leading me this badly on purpose?" he had to ask.

_Well, I DID offer to telekinetically move you through the air, _said Celebi into his mind. _Why didn't you accept?_

"I get airsick sometimes, okay? Not that I haven't had plenty of time to get USED to rocketing through the air with zero control over my movement, but it never improves over time, so shut up!"

_Why are you so crabby? _asked Celebi._ Even after all you've done to me, I'm only trying to help you._

_He's having a bad day,_ Yamask cut in. _What with being spirited away to who-knows-where, separated from our friends, getting nearly possessed, and then learning that he just might die in here if he doesn't trust you – AFTER you snared him with that rope trick – well, wouldn't you be crabby if all of that happened to you?_

_Actually, that kind of thing is the reason I only appear in peaceful times nowadays,_ Celebi responded._ Things have been getting... __**tense**__ in the Pandimensionality._

James was about to ask what that last big word meant, but suddenly a dark and terrible thought struck him. "Um, this may be a stupid question, but..." He tried to sound casual, even thought the thought he was about to voice was definitely NOT casual. "Please tell me I'm not actually... actually..."

"_...dead"? _Celebi asked, strangely amused. _Oh, please, don't you humans ever use those big brains of yours? If you'd come here because you'd died, would you really still have Yamask on your Poke-belt?_

James honestly hadn't thought of that.

_Of course you hadn't thought of that. You wouldn't have even had your Poke-belt, because when you're dead, "you can't take it with you," as you humans say. Right, Yamask?_

_Exactly, _said Yamask. _I should know._

"Well, you should know that if I have to wear your DISGUSTING mask on my face one moment longer, it's going to make me airsick _**without**_ the air!"

Yamask was horribly offended. _That mask used to be my __**FACE**__, you know!_

"If that was meant to make me feel less disgusted, it didn't work!"

_Here we are, _said Celebi, motioning to Yamask with one arm. _Now, please, take your disgusting face of off James' disgusting face._

"I heard tha- ARRRRGHHHHHH!" James' comeback was interrupted by a feeling of revulsion and horror when he felt like his entire face was being pulled off at once. It wasn't his own face, of course – it was Yamask's mask – but it still seemed like he was losing a part of his body, and there was no way that could possibly be _fun_. "I am _**never**_ going through that **AGAIN**!" he screamed, nearly threatening Yamask – but pulling back when Celebi flew between them and gave James a Mean Look. "U-u-unless you really want me to," he finished lamely. "I-I'm flexible."

Without the mask, he couldn't understand Celebi saying, _Gosh, you're a coward. Maybe I shouldn't have... no, no, what am I saying? You'll learn with time..._

_hope._

James shook his head to get all the _creepy_ out of his brain. Then he looked around at his surroundings... and stopped cold.

He'd expected to see something other than trees and pools, but THIS wasn't what he'd expected at all. What he saw was a colossal tree _**in**_ a colossal pool, with a colossal knothole-like door grown into it, with colossally deep letters carved above it in some archaic, unknown font. The colossal letters seemed to have some colossal meaning to them, but he couldn't figure out what – but he was betting that he wouldn't like it. What he couldn't have possibly seen was the colossal trouble he could potentially get into if he stepped through that colossial knothole, but he certainly suspected it.

Then Celebi motioned for him to go inside.

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After freeing Darkat, Jessie's next order of business was to get out of the miry pit she'd been somehow dragged into. (Actually, her first order of business was to chew Darkat out for being part of the circumstances that had led her into the pit in the first place, but Darkat _gently_ informed her that, in fact, her Honchkrow ensemble was completely real, and that she _had_ killed the Honchkrow herself, and that she would very much DISLIKE to have to do the same to Jessie, which Jessie still wasn't sure was an entirely accurate sentiment.) Darkat, despite being a slightly rough customer, was just as eager to get out as Jessie was, but her first idea of how to get out didn't exactly sit well with Jess.

It turned out that the pit was illuminated by a wall of blazing electricity blocking off the only ground-level exit. What with how damp it was down there, the very mud they were sitting in seemed to carry an electric tinge to it. (Jessie made a note that, when she next saw James, if she ever did, then she was going to KILL HIM for sneaking off on her. No exaggeration. Not that she thought that she ever WOULD see him again, that little sneak. Whatever happened to team loyalty? He and Yamask were probably out having a grand old time without her, she thought. And despite all that, part of her still missed him and Meowth like crazy. Another part of her was writing some expletive-ridden poetry to yell at them once she saw them again, but that was just the old Jessie attitude working again.)

"This area must be blocked off for a reason," said Darkat. "Naturally, being a Zebstrika rider, I have plenty of experience with enduring electric shocks, so getting through this should be a piece of cake. Then I can dig my way through the dirt wall and make a path for you to get through as well."

Jessie snorted. "Don't you think I'm dirty enough as it is? I'm up to my ears in darned-if-I-know-what, and I have to go crawling around in tunnels? I've got other plans." She reached for her Poke-belt. "Woobat! Come out here!"

Apparently whoever had chucked her in that pit had neglected to take away Woobat's Pokeball, because Woobat came right out as usual, chirping, "Woo! Woo!"

"All right!" Jessie shouted cheerfully. "Woobat can Fly us up to-"

Darkat put a cautionary forepaw on Jessie's leg. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," she warned.

"Right. Quiet. Got it."

The Purrloin shook her head. "It's not that. Think about it. A Pokemorph from Team Rocket's experiments – or perhaps Team Galactic's, I'm not sure which – would most certainly know to check a captured Trainer for Pokeballs. And this setup is just a little _too_ convenient for us to escape. Odds are, if our captors are smart, they've got something very nasty waiting for us up there."

Of course Darkat was right, but Jessie didn't want to admit it TOO quickly. "And suppose our captors _aren't_ that smart?"

"Then they definitely won't be expecting us to get through a wall of solid electricity, if 'solid' even _applies_ to energy. So, really, if YOU were able to pass through the electric force-field unscathed, then we'd have a perfect escape on our paws – er – hands. But I can't possibly expect that out of a pureblooded hum-"

Jessie, not listening past "perfect escape," took a running leap towards the electrical field, diving perfectly into... the shock of her life, as it seemed, since she got "blasted off again" and into the opposite wall. Apparently not even all her practice against Ash's Pikachu could make her capable of defying the laws of physics. And Darkat had honestly believed it was even possible.

"As I was SAYING," Darkat continued, only vaguely annoyed, "you shouldn't have done that." She groaned. "Great. Now all our tormentors are going to show up along the edge of this pit to see what's going on, and they'll see that I'm out of my fetters, and that you have a Woobat flying around in here, and they'll do everything in their power to stop our escape."

Darkat was half right. The freakish Exeggcute Pokemorph _did_ show up, and he _did_ bring along a few Pokemon and Pokemorph friends, some of which neither Jessie nor Darkat recognized the species of, but they didn't seem interested in halting any escape efforts. No, _**they**_ just wanted to gather around and watch the show as Darkat tried to stop Jessie as the woman incessantly kept trying to force her way through the field, darkly muttering something about having endured a certain twerp and his Pikachu.

"You're not getting yourself any less filthy doing this, you know!" Darkat shouted.

But the events of the past days seemed to have taken their toll. To all appearances, Jessie had totally lost it.

**Next Chapter: James runs like a scared Deerling! MAYBE. And hopefully we find out what Luthor is talking about, assuming he's even telling the truth... I love teasers.**


	5. Obviously Not Yet, Anyway

**A/N: Sorry, no poetry from Jessie this chapter. Actually, nothing from Jessie at all, but that doesn't mean nothing ABOUT Jessie. As for the rest, just read on. I will note that this is where it starts getting violent.**

Chapter Five

James stared wordlessly into the deep, yawning chasm within the enormous tree, with the mysterious letters carved above the doorway burning in his mind. They MEANT something, he knew, and while he wasn't sure what, he certainly didn't think they said _Welcome to Paradise_. And this one little innocent Celebi that just so happened to have leveled the entire Ilex Forest on its own (in a matter of speaking) was asking him to go inside?

He did what any respectable coward would do: screamed like a little girl and ran off into the strange forest like a Rapidash fleeing a rainstorm. "Get away from me!"

Celebi, who'd seen THAT one coming, rolled her eyes. _Well, Yamask, you were right about one thing: he sure doesn't look like much of a battler._

_You know he won't last long on his own in the Between, _Yamask replied. _There's nothing for him to eat out here. Not to mention the terrible danger his friends are in, if what you've told me is true. We have to catch up with poor James and explain things to him._

_But how? _asked Celebi. _I doubt he'll take kindly to being __masked__ again. _She considered a bit. _Maybe I can find Latias somewhere inside the Tree, or at least SOMEONE who can translate Poke-speak. You go try to calm your Trainer a bit._

Yamask rolled its eyes. _Trainer? Not likely. The way he's been since we came here, it's almost as if __**I**__ have to train __**him**__._

_Quite frankly, _said Celebi, _I don't blame him. Not for that much, at least._

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"You know," the Jolteon said bluntly to Luthor, "SOME of us don't even know what a Missingno IS, yet alone what it would be doing with an artifact of incredible power such as the HeartGold." Jolteon turned to the Rhyperior. "Is it natural for those of higher authority in the Rebel Underground to keep so many secrets from new recruits?"

"I've been pushing for Nidoking to institute a New Recruit Training Semiar," Luthor put in, "but he never seems to-"

"SHUT UP!" yelled Rhyperior, rudely knocking Luthor clear across the catacombs. "She asked a question, now ANSWER HER, you worthless little Raticate!"

Luthor grumbled under his breath about how Raticate had feelings too, but quickly composed himself as he limped back to his former position. From his unusual prison, Meowth noted that Rhyperior seemed to be the "big boss" down there – wherever "there" was. _Must be da Rebel Undaground,_ thought Meowth. Rebel underground – he'd overheard a few random executives talking about something about that in Team Rocket HQ once, but he couldn't remember what they'd said. Something about their escaped experiments...

"Ahem." Luthor brushed off his lab coat the dust he _could_ brush off and turned to Jolteon. "My dear Fiona – and you listen too, Abby – _Missingno_ is mostly used as a generic term for Pokemon not found in any region's Pokedex, including both Pokemorphs, and non-Pokemon species such as mongoose – but in this case, it means something far more dangerous."

"Well, what kind of dangerous?" asked the Machoke, who apparently was Abby. "The bad kind, or the fun kind?"

"Both." The Luxray's voice went low, and his glow flickered to a level suitable for retelling a ghost story in a tent in the middle of nowhere. "These Missingno were Team Rocket experiments from who knows how long back, experiments that were failed, cast off, and forgotten. At the time, they were harmless. But when Team Rocket altered the radio signals near the Lake of Rage to force the Magikarp there to evolve, it affected the Missingno as well, and they became terrible monsters, ravaging everything and everyone they came in contact with. Eventually, humanity was forced to wipe them out entirely, a sad fate for any species – even a monstrous kind like themselves."

"Who do you mean," muttered Fiona the Jolteon, "the Missingno, or humanity?"

"Shh!" whispered Abby. "I'm enjoying this!"

Rhyperior stayed silent, giving Luthor a look that said _I-don't-believe-a-word-of-what-you're-saying-and-I-doubt-I-ever-will_. "Apparently," Luthor continued, "at least one has remained, no doubt using the HeartGold's power to disguise itself as an ordinary Meowth. Now, back when I was with Team Rocket – not my finest moments, I assure you, and I'm deeply ashamed of-"

"Team Rocket?"

Finally Rhyperior had spoken, somewhat accusingly. "You're telling me that Team Rocket had a mutated Missingno in their possession all this time?"

Luthor was shocked, metaphorically speaking. "Why, whatever would give you THAT idea? I was to suggest nothing of the sort!" But even Meowth, who could only see the Luxray from the corner of his eye, could tell that he was hiding something.

"Oh, YOU weren't the one that tipped me off," growled Rhyperior. "No, it was that human witch with the R on her shirt that was hangin' out with this supposed Missingno when they walked into Darkat and Mongoose." He growled even more deeply, his voice threatening a roar. "Now, tell me, Luthor-formerly-from-Team-Rocket, what exactly would bring _another_ Team Rocket member to our shores – bearing a _supposedly lethal_ Missingno, no less – carrying the HeartGold we seek and practically _asking_ us to kidnap her?"

This was obviously news to Luthor, who was sending out sparks from his mane as if a Flaafy-wool-gloved human hand was rubbing him the wrong way. "You're saying Team Rocket WAS involved? I had my suspicions, of course, but-"

"Suspicions, my stony backside!" Rhyperior roared, grabbing the unfortunate Luxray in one enormous claw and holding him at arm's length. "You knew everything, didn't you?" Abby giggled as Luthor flailed wildly, gasping for breath as Rhyperior shook him none too gently. "Don't play dumb with me if you value your life – TALK!"

But Luthor didn't talk.

Luthor LAUGHED.

"You literally have no idea what you're dealing with," chortled the Luxray. "And for that matter, neither do I. But this much I'll say: you've been found out. The whole of the Rebel Underground has been found out. And Heaven help us all if that Missingno gets loose, because we're going to need it."

Rhyperior was not amused.

In a single violent motion, Luthor was literally between a rock and a hard place. The hard place was Rhyperior's claw, and the rock was the wall of the catacombs. Meowth was completely helpless to interfere, yet alone look away from Luthor's horrible bloody ending. To make matters worse, the Machoke named Abby seemed to be enjoying the spectacle, which made Meowth earnestly wish he had enough motor skills to at LEAST throw up.

"Get the human girl out of the prison cells, Fiona," said Rhyperior. "I have a few words to bandy with her. And Abby," he said to the Machoke, "if that THING escapes... _you know what to do_."

"YES!" Abby cheered, pumping her fists together. "More carnage!"

Fiona shook her head. "It's a _**Missingno**_, Titan. If it's really as dangerous as Luthor claimed it was, what's one Machoke going to do against it?"

"Horrible gory things!" shouted Abby, clearly enjoying herself.

Titan the Rhyperior shook his head. "Seriously? I don't think that's even a real Missingno in there, let alone bearing the HeartGold. Luthor was always a conniving old dolt, and I'm certain he was hiding something. Not that he'll cast any _electric light_ on the situation NOW."

And with that, the Rhyperior turned and stalked out of the catacombs with Fiona, leaving Abby behind to guard what might have been a Missingno, or what might have been a Meowth, but was absolutely certainly an infuriated Pokemon.


	6. Not a Chance in a Chansey

Chapter Six

James had never run so fast before in his life. Not ever. Not even at the time Team Rocket had stumbled into the annual Running of the Tauros in Ecruteak City and gone 25 miles before Jessie had had the bright idea to take a detour off a convenient nearby cliff. Except that the cliff had been a LOT higher up than Jessie had expected, and they'd wound up rolling downhill and straight into an enormous vat of Moomoo Milk being taken to market. Which wouldn't have been so bad, considering that it had healed their myriad injuries, except that the farmer had been extremely ticked off that his entire supply of milk was ruined, and he'd told them point blank that if they didn't get off his truck immediately, he was going to pasteurize the whole lot of them with extreme prejudice. James still wasn't quite sure what _pasteurize_ meant, but from the tone of the farmer's voice when he'd said it, James hadn't wanted to stick around and find out. (Jessie thought it had meant "put out to pasture," which James didn't even want to consider the implications of. Especially if there was any risk of meeting more Tauros.)

James ran on and on, faster than he had ever run before in his life, deeper and deeper into the winding maze of waters and trees that formed the Between, never knowing how he was to get out again, or even that he could never get out by merely running away from everything that could possibly help him. For without Celebi, there could be no other way out of the Between.

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"To protect the world from devas**TA**tion!" (crash!)

"To unite all peoples within our **NA**tion!" (zap!)

"To denounce the evils of tr**UTH** and l**OV**e!" (slam!)

"To ex**TEND**" (bang!) "Our **REA**ch" (clunk!) "To the st**ARS**" (whoosh!) "ab**OVE**!" (whap!)

_Yes,_ Darkat thought to herself, _this Jessie woman has definitely lost it._

It had been about an hour since Jessie had started her near-suicidal attempt to break through the electric field separating her and Darkat from freedom (presumably; they didn't really know their way out, but anywhere, they both thought, would be better than their dark muddy pit), and though obviously the efforts had taken a toll on her, she wasn't showing any signs of stopping.

And her captors weren't showing any signs of stopping _**her**_, either. Instead, they were all gathered around the edge of the pit, watching Jessie run smack into the field and get thrown across the length of the pit for the hundredth time, then get back up again; and even placing bets on how long it would take for her to finally break her neck and croak.

The Exeggutor morph seemed to especially be enjoying this. So were the various other Pokemon and Poke-morphs gathered together along the edge, some of whom could well have been Missingno for all Darkat knew. The only one who looked unhappy was the wilted Snivy, who obviously hadn't been out in real sunlight for over a decade. Darkat was almost afraid that the poor thing would decompose right on the spot, dripping mulch into the already filthy pit.

There was no sign of Mongoose, though. The dirty Sneasel! Darkat just KNEW that her former business partner had had _something_ to do with the recent captures, given that the non-Pokemon had served the tainted drinks to Jessie and her partner Meowth. And likely to others, too, although Darkat couldn't quite remember that much.

She thought back to the night of the capture. The Zebstrika she had been riding during the show had bucked pretty hard, but she'd managed to stay on it long enough to see that her audience was dropping off to sleep as if they were listening to an entire textbook of quantum physics sung by a Jigglypuff. She'd attempted to _whoa_ Zebstrika, who was actually a very good friend of hers, but soon discovered that the Sweet Scent had somehow made Zebstrika intoxicated, making matters much, much worse than she had expected. Then the Roserade themselves had all come against them, smacking Darkat and Zebstrika with their thorny bouquets, until eventually Zebstrika had thrown Darkat off completely, and she'd fallen at the unforgiving feet of Titan the Rhyperior.

Past that, Darkat wasn't sure of all that had happened, except that she had been chained into this pit and later freed by the hairpin of what was most undoubtedly a raving looney. She should have expected that, really. No sane being would put time and effort into maintaining Jessie's hairdo.

It was about the hundredth-and-twenty-second time Jessie had gotten herself flung into the opposite wall that one perceptive Gothielle said, "This may be a stupid question, but has anyone else noticed that the electric field keeps getting weaker every time she hits it?"

"Shaddup!" yelled Exeggcutor. "I know where that tunnel goes. Even if she DID manage to break though, she'd never-"

"Break through?" asked Fiona the Jolteon, rushing into the group with Titan hot on her heels. "Who broke through? What's going on?"

"So _help_ me, Julian," Titan growled dangerously, "if you've let that human scum escape..."

The Exeggutor morph, who must have been Julian, turned to Titan and grinned. "Relax, pal. She's trapped in there tighter than a Cloyster's backsi-"

-and it was about that time that, in a shower of sparks and a yell that could have woken a Snorlax, Jessie broke clear through the field and into the tunnel.

"**WE'RE BLASTING OFF AGAIN!"** she yelled in triumph, momentarily forgetting that she only yelled that after losing humiliatingly to the twerps yet again. Then, completely paralyzed, she fell unconscious.

In the resulting chaos among the watchers, nobody had even noticed when Darkat dug completely through the dirt wall and into the same side of the tunnel. But they definitely noticed now that she, too, had disappeared. Even Woobat had followed her through the tunnel, preferring not to get shocked by any leftover static from the former electric barrier. Between the two of them, they managed to carry the injured and paralyzed Jessie to what they hoped would be relative safety.

But it wasn't long before Titan was hot on their trail.


	7. Can't Run From Your Troubles

Chapter Seven

It didn't take long for Julian to form a simple vine ladder down to the prison pit, but it took considerably longer for him to make it strong enough to bear Titan's weight. (Whatever else they were, Rhyperior were certainly not lightweights.) Before he did so, though, he sent Gothielle and Fiona down to try to catch Jessie and Darkat before they could get away.

Or, rather, before Darkat and Woobat could get away carrying Jessie, who was thankfully unconscious. Darkat rolled her eyes. Of all the humans to break out of a prison pit with, why did it have to be a woman who grew her hair like a comet tail and spoke in terrible poetry? _She__doesn't__belong__in__Team__Rocket,_ the Purrloin thought to herself as she tried to lug Jessie's ankles to safety while Woobat supported the rest of Jessie by holding her hair in its teeth. _She__belongs__in__either__an__asylum__or__a__cheap__circus.__I__am__genuinely__embarrassed__even__to__be__touching__her__footwear._

Darkat tended to think things like this to herself, using long words in English just to remind herself that she COULD speak, which was almost a miracle in itself. Almost. For most people in Unova that she'd met, though, it had only marked her as a freak, like some sort of Missingno such as, for instance, a Pokemorph, which was a controversial type of creature to even exist with Team Plasma running around.

Darkat wasn't a Pokemorph. Not exactly, anyway. Her father had been a Shinx Pokemorph, and her mother had been a regular Purrloin. Don't ask how that worked. Actually, Pokemon reproduced by overlapping portions of their respective auras to form an egg, so it wasn't as bad as it sounded. A lot healthier than human reproduction, and to most Pokemon, much less gag-inducing. _Imagine__carrying__your__eggs__in__your__abdomen__for__nine__months!_It just didn't bear thinking about, especially when you considered multiple births.

_Funny__the__things__that__run__through__your__mind__when__you're__running__for__your__life,_ thought Darkat. _Here__I__am,__lugging__a__comatose__human__nutjob__through__a__dark__and__winding__tunnel,__being__pursued__by..._

_No one?_

It occurred to her that if anyone had been really serious about catching them, they'd have arrived by then. Two rather smallish Pokemon lugging a fully grown human through a dark underground tunnel couldn't move very fast, yet Darkat heard nothing. Even Woobat hadn't sensed any pursuers.

So what were Fiona and the Gothielle doing?

Answer: _Being__afraid.__Being__very__afraid._ Because unlike Darkat and her crew, they knew exactly what the trio was about to run into. Gothielle had seen it; yet another amazing feat from a creature that saw what few others could see. She saw a creature of pure darkness, spawned from an error of judgment and living only for vengeance on those who had wronged it. She saw a raging monster as if from the depths of Hell itself, waiting in a tortured slumber for some brave fool to dare challenge it – and perish. What she saw was the Primal Banette.

* * *

><p><p>

While Gothielle was seeing all this, James was completely lost in the Between, where every tree looked the same and every pool of water just like the next. Panicking, James felt as if he had been running for hours, yet he couldn't tell if he was running _away_ from something or running _to_ it. He was hopelessly trapped, trapped from the inside in his own despair, certain that behind every tree branch lurked a sinister being out for his blood. (This was completely unsupported by any evidence whatsoever, as no one seemed to have been IN the Between – besides the myriad Celebi – for ages; and if they had, they certainly hadn't shown any trace of it.) And oddly enough, although James had been trying to escape his Celebi captor, now he only wished for her to return for him, just so he wouldn't be alone.

Worst of all, he was starving. None of the trees bore edible fruit (or any fruit at all, for that matter), and there were no berry bushes or other consumables in sight. The pools provided fresh water for drinking, but there were no fish to catch in them; not that James was really fond of sushi, but at this point, he was famished enough to try _anything_. Even the grass itself looked tempting, and to a Grass-type trainer, that only showed how desperate he was.

_I'm__losing__my__mind__here!_ he thought desperately. "Help!" James yelled into the forest. "Help me! Somebody help me! Please! I'm going to die out here!"

And then a pair of humongous red eyes appeared in the shadows, causing James to jump a mile and scream like a baby, hitting his head on a tree branch and nearly knocking himself unconscious.

Fortunately, the humongous red eyes belonged to a not-so-proportionally-humongous friend of his that really, truly couldn't help it if it looked an awful lot like a sinister being emerging from the shadows to leech out his life force, as if there had been much left for it to leech out anyways. "Maask!" said the familiar ghost Pokemon. "Yamaaask!"

James was overjoyed, if a little dizzy. "I thought I'd never see you again!"

"Yaaa-Maaaask!

It was motioning for James to follow it. With nowhere left to turn, James eagerly followed, tripping over his own feet in disorientation while hoping against hope that his Pokemon would somehow lead him out of this nightmare and back to his teammates.

And even when Yamask led him right back to the suspicious-looking doorway set in the unnaturally large tree, James only slightly hesitated before he walked right in. _Might__as__well__die__here__as__anywhere__else,_ he thought resignedly. Of course, the last time he went into what looked like a giant tree, he'd been eaten by a defense pod and almost perished. But even if it was eat or be eaten, he wasn't about to turn down any chance to do the former, not in his current state. Even if the mysterious message carved above the doorway still said what looked like the runic equivalent of _Welcome__to__Hell_. Not that he could tell at that moment, since in his current state, he could barely see the letters.

The pathway led down what seemed to be a flight of stairs (in a tree? Curiouser and curiouser) until it reached a closed door with a golden light streaming from the crack underneath it. Even in his near-delirium, James had the feeling that something very strange was waiting for him on the other side, but at the moment, he didn't care if it was dark or benign, just so long as it ended this charade of _not__knowing_ what the heck was going on here.

Taking a deep breath and trying to quiet his pounding heart, his throbbing head, and his growling stomach, James opened the door.

What he saw completely snapped him back into coherency.

**Author's Note: Looks like he's taking what's behind door no. 3... heh heh heh. What lurks within the great tree? And what the hey is Primal Banette, anyway? Must be pretty vicious if Gothielle and Fiona are risking Titan's wrath to avoid it...**

**Anyway, I edited the James section of this chapter shortly after watching the Applebuck Season episode of Friendship is Magic, since Applejack's situation with being overworked seemed much like how James was feeling in this situation, and I realized that I could get a lot of humor out of it, even though I'm sure James doesn't think it's funny at all. Excuse me while I dodge Yamask's Night Shade attack. *ducks***


	8. Didn't See That Coming

Chapter Eight

James blinked in astonishment, trying to take everything in. The inside of the tree was like a living library; check that, it WAS a living library, because all of the furnishings were part of the tree – the bookshelves, grown out of an inner trunk full of knotholes; the furniture, formed by vines and tree limbs; and even the light fixtures, which were cloaked in leaves and gave off a tantalizing aroma that only reminded James of just how hungry he was.

_Okay, now I'm definitely dead._

The only other being inside the spacious library room was a somewhat distracted Flareon Pokemorph standing on the top of a very high ladder and reshelfing books – or maybe it wasn't a Pokemorph at all, but an entirely separate species. Well, it LOOKED like a Flareon Pokemorph, sort of. The ears weren't as long and the tail wasn't as foofy, not to mention that the muzzle was white.

James figured that if he was going to get anywhere in this bizarre place, he should probably say something. "Hey!" he called out to the morph. "You!"

The morph whirled around, losing its balance, and James immediately noticed three things: it was definitely female, she was definitely gorgeous, and she was definitely falling to her doom.

Meowth wanted to scream.

He couldn't, of course, because he was still completely paralyzed by that blasted electric field around him. And even if he had, the only one who would have heard it was Abby the Machoke, who might have taken it as a challenge to butt heads with him. As it was, Abby seemed to be every bit as bored with the situation as Meowth was, and with no one else to talk to but the slain Luxray still lying to one side, she apparently decided to taunt the Missingno. If Meowth even WAS a Missingno, which, given his current situation, he might never find out.

"You know, if everything Luthor said was true," said Abby, "you'd probably be able to bust yourself out of there just by wishing it."

_Woman,__don't__ya__think__I'm__already__wishin'__it?_ Meowth thought.

"A Missingno is pretty powerful, from what I've heard. Weak to Fighting-type moves, though, which I know quite a few of. Pity you can't come out and see which of us is tougher, huh? I'd totally turn you to Aprijuice. BURN!"

_Yoir disgustin' me, woman._

"A Missingno with the HeartGold! Do you even realized what the HeartGold can DO?" Abby looked at Meowth sideways. "Oh, right. If you knew, you wouldn't be in there, would you?"

_I dunno whadda HeartGoild even is, but if it gets me outta here, I'm happy._

"What I wouldn't give to read your mind right now. Of course, I could always just crack your head open and take a look-see, but somehow I don't think I'd be able to make out much." She laughed as if the joke was actually funny, which, given the recent fate of Luthor the Luxray, it wasn't.

_Just__tell__me__whadda__HeartGoild__is!_ Meowth thought desperately. Unfortunately, since Poke-speak was conducted via bio-electric telepathy, the force-field kept his thoughts completely inaudible. At least he could still hear what was being said outside the field, not that **that** was any comfort whatsoever.

"Makes sense that you'd be disguised as a Meowth, kid. I hear Payday is one of Missingno's chief moves."

_I__wish._ (For some strange reason, Meowth had never been able to learn Payday. He'd always blamed it on all the energy he'd put into learning to walk and talk like a human – sort of a mini-evolution, which also explained why he had never become a Persian.)

"Your other moves are supposedly Bind, Water Gun, and some special move called V. I don't know what a move called V is supposed to do, but apparently it's pretty lethal. V for violence." Abby looked sideways as Meowth again. "And I'm betting you're wondering how I know all this."

_I'm wonderin' when yoi'll tell me how dat HeartGoild thing can bust me outta here!_

"I know this," Abby said darkly, "because **I** used to be a Missingno myself."

Even if Meowth had been able to speak, he wouldn't have had any words to express his shock. No pun intended.

"They tried to destroy me, of course, but you can't simply _destroy_ a Missingno. We're all over the place, hiding in plain sight behind the guise of innocent Pokemon." She smiled like a Sharpedo. "And one day, we WILL rule this world."

She offered him her paw, pausing a few inches short of touching the field that bound him. "Come with me, 'Meowth.' break free and wreak the havoc you were built for. Purge this world with fire." She grinned wider. "You know you want revenge."

Meowth didn't want revenge; he wanted... but then Abby seemed to read his mind as she said the one thing that snapped his temper completely.

"...for Jessie's sake."

Whatever "V" was, Meowth was about to discover it.


	9. Drama

Chapter Nine

While all the drama was going on underground, Snivy had simply walked home. "Home," of course, being underground itself, which wasn't at all a nice situation for any Snivy. If it weren't for the light energy provided by his own cooking fires, Snivy would have died of starvation.

A funny thing, fire was. The sun, the most important thing in the world to a Grass-type (and one that particular poor Snivy hadn't seen for ages) was a ball of fire itself, up there in the great expanse of blue nothing called the Sky (which he also hadn't seen for ages), yet touching its fire would prove fatal to any Pokemon, even a Fire-type – and especially a Grass-type. Deadly, yet essential. It was a metaphor for something, but Snivy couldn't think of what.

Mongoose was waiting for Snivy in its stone-carved hut for news of the Plan. He was not disappointed. "You were right," said the Grass Snake Pokemon. "The Purrloin escaped as you said she would. Took some boneheaded Team Rocket woman with her, too, although it was the Rocket that really did the grunt work. I doubt they'll make it out of the Rebel Underground, though. Not alone."

Mongoose gave Snivy a pointed look that said, "Well, don't just stand there, do something." Mongoose never spoke aloud. Snivy wasn't even sure if the base animal COULD talk in any language, but he certainly seemed to understand Poke-speak.

Snivy shook his head. "I can't go out there; I'll be missed on rations duty. Either you go out yourself, or you cook for the troops while I round up some help. Take your pick."

Mongoose gave Snivy one of his dirty looks, but got up from a chair made of roots plastered with mud and began nosing around Snivy's cupboards for supplies. Snivy shrugged. "Go ahead. Rob me blind. There's nothing much in there anyway, and it's not like you'll ever be any better off than I am in this pit."

Mongoose shook his head firmly, and for the first time in Snivy's hearing, spoke a word. "Go."

Snivy snorted. "FINE," he whined. "I'll go round up whatever pathetic resistance still exists within this dark hell of a-"

Mongoose shook his head, then pointed at himself. "Go."

Snivy stopped cold. "YOU'RE going...? But Titan's out there, and Primal Banette, and all the Shuppet... and Litwick and Lampent and Chandelure..."

"GO," Mongoose insisted, giving Snivy a very firm look.

Snivy snorted. "You're a lunatic, but okay, just so long as it's not me." Dang it, his sympathy act had worked a little TOO well this time. Snivy had had no intention of actually collecting help, of course – he knew as much as anyone not to mess with Titan's plans – but he had earnestly hoped to get out of having to cook yet another under-appreciated meal with the truly terrible ingredients that the Rebel Underground provided. Heck, Mongoose had been a barkeeper, right? That had to mean he could cook, RIGHT?

Snivy shuddered to himself as Mongoose continued searching through the cupboards, finally choosing a carving knife almost as long as he was tall. With his plans, Mongoose was going to need that knife sooner or later. Maybe even to kill himself before Titan could do something _worse_ to him, which Titan probably would.

* * *

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James rushed to catch the falling Flareon morph – if that was even what she was; at the moment, identifying her was the least of his worries. Later on, given everything that had happened afterwards, he forever wondered if this had been a wise idea, but he always knew, from that moment onward, that it was the right one.

He just hadn't expected the morph girl to collapse into dust halfway down and completely engulf him in a cloud of sand, uncontrollably pouring into his nose, mouth, ears, and clothes as if to smother him.

James panicked – especially as he realized that in his starvation, his mouth was swallowing down whatever this dust was without even thinking of how disturbing that was. Even more disturbing, the dust cloud (part of which he was eating!) was still alive, swirling around him in a panic that almost matched the total and utter horror James was feeling himself.

_Sorry!_ said a voice inside his head. _I_ _didn't_ _mean_ _to!_ It was presumably the voice of the morph girl, but James didn't have time to figure that out before the dust transformed into a painful shower of blue sparks, knocking him deeply unconscious.

Unconscious... or worse.

**Next chapter: Things get worse before they can get better... and the story becomes a true crossover at last.**


	10. A Rocket's Redemption

Chapter Ten

James awoke in a nightmare.

At first, he thought he'd somehow come back to Team Rocket headquarters and was in the labs. Dozens upon dozens of Pokemon cages lined the walls, each one containing a familiar – and frightened – fuzzy face. He jumped back in alarm; were those _really_ all the Pokemon that he and the trio had failed to capture in their career?

What were they doing _here_, then?

Being miserable, obviously; each one bore the marks of cruel experiments and painful vivisection. The creatures cowered in their cages as they saw him, shaking in terror, some even sobbing to themselves. The only stoic Pokemon was a shiny Rhyhorn that glared bloody daggers at James from its pen, bashing its fists against the bars of its prison and roaring out what must have been Pokemon death threats. James quickly moved away from that one.

In a glass cage next to the Rhyperior lay a battered and bleeding Pikachu, wires inserted into its body in various places to feed off its energy. That _twerp's_ Pikachu. It opened one eye to look at James (who was feeling more and more like a rotten person every minute) before collapsing back into half-consciousness.

_This_ _isn't_ _right_, James thought. _We_ _never_ _actually_ _took_ _any_ _of_ _these_ _Pokemon_ _to_ _the_ _boss_. _We'd_ _always_ _been_ _stopped_ _somehow..._ Than a darker thought struck him. _But_ _what_ _if_ _we_ _had?_

And then he realized how many of the caged Pokemon were dead.

"No," James yelled at himself, realizing that he was responsible, that he HAD to have been responsible, that even if he hadn't actually succeeded in doing to them what was being done now, this was still the fate he had wished upon them. "No, no, no... NO!"

Was he dreaming? Was he awake? Was he... dead? He didn't know, and he didn't care. He just had to get out of this horrible place, even if it killed him. And, truth be told, it probably would.

_And_ _I_ _**deserve**_ _it._

"Celebi!" he screamed, upsetting many of the surviving Pokemon. "Celebi, HELP ME!"

* * *

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What helped him wasn't Celebi at all.

It was an enormous Entei, bigger even than the illusionary Entei which had ruled the dreams of little Molly in that horrifying Unown incident in Greenfield. It was shiny, but It wasn't the one he'd seen in the incident with Zoroark – this One clearly put all other Entei to shame. To describe It – he couldn't, just that It radiated power and that Its eyes blazed like blue coals of fire, coals that could pierce James' heart like flaming arrows. Entei didn't seem like It _wanted_ to destroy him, thank goodness, but one look at Its somber face said quite clearly that whether It wanted to or not, It might have to.

James was speechless, barely daring to breathe. In the space of three seconds, he fell to his knees, then onto his face, whimpering pitifully. _What_ _**was**_ _this_ _Thing,_ _this_ _Being?_ He didn't know what he wanted – for Entei to just go away, or for everything else to go away and leave him with Entei forever. Being near the Entei was like being in the forest of the Between, only much more so – horror and longing all mixed into one, both so strong that they threatened to overpower the other. He feared It, yes, but part of him wanted to bury his face in Its fur and beg it for comfort... and for forgiveness.

Entei spoke in a voice like thunder, providing the words that James had both wanted and dreaded. "Speak what is on your heart, child."

James, still flat on the floor, couldn't bring himself to look up. "Forgive me... Master..." Where had "Master" come from? James had never wanted anyone to be his master, never wanted to serve ANYONE, yet somehow, here and now, it fit. "I... I did this..." Then, in a burst of emotion, he babbled, "Whatever you do to me now, can't you save THEM?"

It spoke again. "My son, you are forgiven."

James didn't even hear those words at first. "Well, at least get it over w- WHAT?"

A heavy, thick-furred paw lifted James' face from the dusty ground (which had seemed even colder then the floor of the real Team Rocket labs before It had come, but now glowed with a radiant warmth from It – or Him). James dared to open his eyes, his gaze traveling from the great velvet paw to the iron manacle around Entei's ankle, up to the great flowing mane of fur and into the great Face, where two blue Eyes like coals of fire looked down on him with kindness and mercy.

_Forgiven?_

"But-but-but... I don't understand!"

Entei smiled at him. "Look behind you, child."

James looked, and – everything was different! The cages, the wires, the blood and horror was gone completely. In its place stood a meadow, a beautiful green grassy meadow under the sun, where all the Pokemon – ALL the Pokemon – were playing happily, free and alive. Even their trainers joined in, letting the pocket monsters crawl all over them, smothering them with affection. James ducked behind Entei when he saw the Ketchum twerp with them. No need for unwanted awkward encounters, right?

But as James moved behind the great Legendary Pokemon, he was horrified to see that Entei had sunk to Its knees, losing power. The bruises and cuts of every tortured Pokemon James had seen had moved to It, showing horribly even through Its thick fur. The same wires that had stuck into Pikachu were now stuck into Entei, shocking It horribly. Entei's eyes looked sadly into James', and then they... closed...

"No, Entei!" James yelled suddenly, startling the Pokemon and trainers playing only a few feet away. "Don't die, Master!" (Master again? Why do I feel like I've known Him all my life? Why do I feel like I want to know Him forever and ever? Why...)

For the final time, Entei spoke, its words more a whisper than a thunder. "My name... is Aslan."

Then the whole world around them exploded.

* * *

><p><p>

"Is the dew working?"

"Spirit purified it fresh this morning, like He always does. Why wouldn't it work?"

"I was just thinking... well, what if it's too late?"

"Katie, quit beating up on yourself like that. It's not like it's your fault that poor boy tried to catch you while you were morphing into a cloud of dust. He was just being a gentleman."

"Yes, but what if he's a dead gentleman?"

James was now able to make out the two voices. The first voice was the one he'd heard from the dust cloud that had nearly electrocuted him. The second wasn't a voice he'd heard before; in fact, it wasn't a "voice" at all so much as a telepathic presence around him, like the voice of a Psychic-type Pokemon.

And then James realized he was underwater. Underwater, but not drowning; rather, _vibrating_. It felt familiar, the way being in the Lake of Life had felt the day he had first "met" Celebi (Celebi! Where WAS Celebi? he wondered), but much more powerful. It felt like pure Aura energy, flowing into every facet of his being, restoring his very soul. (Any other day, he'd think that was crazy, but now... now, _nothing_ seemed impossible.)

_Aslan_... who was Aslan?

A wet feathery mass ran into James from underneath and lifted him from the water. By this time, James figured that thrashing about was useless; what was going to happen would happen whether he wanted it to or not. Looking down (the only direction he _could_ look in his current position), he saw the long neck and white feathery down of a Latias. A very wet Latias, carrying a very wet James on her back.

Oh, James had never been so glad to be soaking wet!

He saw that they were in a spacious cavern formed by the roots of the enormous tree. The roots drank up water from the Pool (whenever James looked at it, he could only refer to it with a capital P, it was so awesome). The Pool glowed with a silver light, water rippling as if the lake itself was _breathing_. Living water beneath a living tree, flowing through living roots into the trunk itself and beyond.

It was the most glorious thing James had ever seen... besides Aslan.

The morph girl stood near the shores of the Pool with a little black creature resembling an Archeops perched on her shoulder. As Latias approached her, she offered James her hand. "Sorry for landing on you there. Want me to help you down? Don't worry; I promise I won't fall to pieces on you again."

The black Archeops tilted its head at James, scrutinizing him with bright, beady yellow eyes. It tasted the air around James with a tongue forked four ways. Its eyes grew brighter, and it giggled a raspy giggle to itself, apparently pleased with how this new person "tasted."

_New_ _person_, James realized. _I'm_ _a_ _new_ _person._ In this new world, he didn't have to be part of Team Rocket anymore. Something had brought him here, something or someONE, and whoever it was must have done it for a reason.

_Aslan,_ James realized. _It_ _must_ _have_ _been_ _Aslan._He had no idea how he knew this, only that he _knew_.

And in the meantime, he was lying on his belly on Latias' back, soaking wet, and both the morph girl and her Archeops were looking at him as if to say, "Well, are you going to just lie there and be wet all day?" James noticed Yamask and Celebi behind the morph girl, both looking more than relieved to see him breathing. Celebi's eyes met James', and the trainer realized that she'd known all along that this all was going to happen.


	11. On The Outside of the Inside

Chapter Eleven

James was still too much in a daze to say anything, so Latias "said" it for him. "We'd better get you some dry clothes. That Team Rocket uniform does nothing for you."

"Since when do you know anything about fashion, Latias?" Kate teased. "I seem to remember a couple of Team Rocket agents criticizing you for what you wore in your human form. Before you'd learned telepathy, no less, so you couldn't answer them back."

"Please don't bring those two up," sighed Latias. "It's a painful subject."

"You mean Annie and Oakley, right?" James put in, clueless as usual.

Latias sighed audibly, making a sad cooing noise. Kate and her pet creature both turned around and gave James withering looks. James shrunk back, realizing his faux paus and hoping that Kate was serious about not turning into a cloud of dust again. "Sorry."

Kate's expression changed drastically, much to James' relief. "Oh, that's all right. _I_ do that to people all the time. I talk too much, at least that's what people tell me. Do _you_ think I talk too much?" She didn't wait for an answer. "Well, you wouldn't know, since most of the time we've spent together so far was while you were unconscious."

Kate's creature nipped her sharply on her left ear, taking a good-sized chunk out and leaving a trickle of silvery-looking blood. Kate twitched her ear and reformed it by pure will, retracting the fluid and reshaping her minor appendage to how it was before. "Ow. Guess that was Brucie's way of telling me that I DO talk too much."

James tried not to stare. No matter how weird things got around there, he **had** to remember that they could always get weirder, and also that they probably would. "Um, just how long was I unconscious?" he asked, staying as close to Yamask and as far from "Disintegrate Kate" as he dared. "And how do you know my name?" Had he spoken in his sleep, or did his reputation precede him, or what?

"Oh, I knew you were coming sooner or later," she said offhandedly. "Aslan just didn't tell me when."

And that was when the other shoe dropped.

"ASLAN?" James burst out, unable to keep his surprise locked inside him. "You KNOW Him? I mean, KNEW Him?"

Kate looked deep into his emerald eyes, searching for sanity and truth. She was half successful. "James, honestly... you don't think all this happened by coincidence, did you?"

"Do you know about the dream? If it WAS a dream?" James was in full-on panic mode, which happened quite frequently. "What happened to Aslan, and WHAT HAPPENED TO ME?"

"Well, we should probably sit down..."

* * *

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Kate and Celebi offered James a ride back up to the library on Latias' back while Kate explained things, a ride James accepted once he found out that Kate wasn't riding with him. The strange female shapeshifter instead morphed into a larger, pinker variant of her pet creature, Brucie. She was still beautiful, but James didn't trust her. After all, Jessiebelle was beautiful too, but not on the inside. And who knew what was on the inside of a creature like Kate? Something wet and silvery, probably. Was she a Ditto? A Mew? A freak?

James felt somewhat guilty for being so prejudiced, since Kate had after all saved his life. He just didn't want to like someone who'd accidentally smothered him in dust and then electrocuted his butt. Particularly considering that the dust had reached every square inch of his body, which, while completely unintentional, was still a serious violation of personal space. And while Kate was clearly just as embarrassed about the situation as he was, that didn't keep her from constantly mentioning it.

"If you apologize to me one more time," James had finally snapped, "then I'll probably give _myself_ a reason to apologize to _you_. Now quit rambling and tell me something worth hearing!"

He did learn some valuable things, though. The world he was currently in was the Between, also known as The Wood Between The Worlds. The pools that he'd kept falling into while wearing Yamask's mask each contained a different dimension, thus Celebi's term "Pandimensionality" for the collective universe. James himself had been summoned, not simply by Aslan (whom James was relieved to hear would most certainly be all right, since He'd conquered Death forever long before the Poke-world was even created), but by Aslan's Father, the Emperor-Over-Sea. James had asked what kind of Pokemon the Emperor was, but had only gotten loud scoffs and disbelieving stares from his companions until Kate finally explained that the Emperor wasn't actually a Pokemon at all (although He could take the form of Pokemon; Latias had mentioned that Raikou and Ho-Oh were the ones most commonly associated as symbols of Himself), but the all-powerful Being that had created all things.

"You mean Arceus?" James had asked.

Kate had snorted. "No, Arceus emerged from an egg, remember? Someone had to _create_ the egg Arceus hatched from. That Someone was Emperor-Over-Sea."

"So where did the Emperor come from, then?"

"He always was," said Latias. "It's a pretty hard concept for any created being to understand, but Aslan and the Emperor have _always_ existed."

"Hard concept?" Kate rolled her eyes. "You Psychic-types act like you think you could unravel the mysteries of the Emperor all on your own. It's not just _hard_ to understand – it's _impossible_ to comprehend a mere fraction of it."

"Then how do we know it's true?" asked James a little too smugly.

Kate was glad to wipe the smugness off his face. "Because the only other logical alternatives for the Emperor's existence are that the Emperor was created by something even MORE powerful – which still brings the question of where THAT something came from – or that the all-powerful and omnipotent Emperor of the Pandimensionality came into being out of nowhere at all and for no reason at all, which is, to the best of all knowledge, completely absurd. Once you've eliminated the impossible, whatever's left must be the answer."

"Whoa, that's pretty deep. But how do we KNOW that things can't just come out of nothing?"

She laughed, which came out as a harsh _KAWKARRAAW!_ noise in her Archeops form. "Did I say that things can't EVER come out of nothing? Aslan and the Emperor created the entire Pandimensionality together _out_ _of_ _nothing_."

"But that's impossible!"

"Is it?"

James thought about it. "I mean, it's not logical."

"How isn't it?"

"Well, logically, everything comes from something, right?"

"And here we are again. Just because everything you know of comes from something else doesn't mean that everything that exists came from another source. For the Pandimensionality to exist, it needed a reason for being. That Reason was the Emperor."

"My head hurts."

"That usually happens when you contemplate quantum theology."

"Quantum WHAT?"

"Oh, look," Kate said, raising her now-birdlike head toward the cave ceiling, which was finally close enough to touch. "We've reached the entrance to the root tunnel upwards," she went on, pointing to a knothole. "I don't know about you, Latias, but I'm pretty darn tired. What say we take a seed pod the rest of the way?"

Talk about random. "What good is a seed pod going to do us?" asked James.

Celebi gave a high-pitched whistle, and James saw yet another wonder as a hovering boat-shaped vehicle appeared, apparently formed from an enormous Miracle Seed and complete with seats carved (or grown, he couldn't tell which – probably both) into the inside of its shell. It hung suspended from a hook on a thick vine serving as a cable, but one end of the vine seemed to be simply hovering in the air, glowing with magical energy.

"Oh, I get it," James chuckled nervously. "_Seed_ _pod_." At this point, nothing should have surprised him anymore, but for some reason it did anyway.

Latias gently set James down into the pod, then settled in herself, changing into the form of a young human girl. Kate shifted back into her Flareon-morph form, then parked herself next to James, who quickly moved to the other side. Nothing made a situation more awkward than having to sit next to a girl who had accidentally wound up in his pants.

Celebi seemed to pick up on this, so she conferred with Kate a little in Poke-speak. Latias translated. "James, Celebi wants to know if you'd like her to wipe away any... embarrassing memories of your first encounter with Kate here. She's already done it with Kate, thank goodness."

James thought about it a moment. "So long as Kate's forgotten it, I'm good," he finally reassured them. "I just don't like the thought of _not_ knowing about it." And he thought to himself, _I_ _can't_ _let_ _myself_ _forget_ _what_ _that_ _creature_ _is_ _capable_ _of._

But Jessiebelle hadn't been what she'd looked like on the outside, and James was to learn that the same was true of shapeshifters, too, even for what was on the outside of the inside.

* * *

><p><p>

It's hard to say who was the most surprised at the results of Meowth's V attack: Abby the Machoke, or Meowth himself.

It started as a rumbling, kind of like a vacuum cleaner being run two floors away. VIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII. The electric field Meowth was imprisoned in pulsed as the VIIIIIIIIIIIIIII grew stronger, as if trying to fight against it. Meowth could feel every atom vibrating in his paralyzed body.

And then, unexpectedly, all heck broke loose as the electric field exploded into a volley of deadly sparks, cutting through all that stood in their way – including both the cave walls and Abby herself. The Machoke-Missingno screamed in pain, trying to shield herself against the blazing projectiles. Trying, and failing gruesomely.

_Huh._ _Guess_ _she_ _ain't_ _so_ _immoital_ _afta_ _all,_ _den._

The sparks also went straight through the floor, which Meowth instantly regretted. With nothing to stand on, the only thing Meowth the Missingno could do was fall straight down and hope to land on his feet, which he didn't.


	12. Disintregate Kate

**A/N: Just so you know, the strange species names Kate uses in this chapter in reference to her past are all Bionicle species created by Lego, just to give you a little insight as to what I'm talking about. As to Kate's full past, well... I prefer the slow, gradual route to revealing things, as you may well have guessed by now.**

Chapter Twelve

"So, um..." James fumbled around for a new topic of conversation, not wanting to dwell on the Disintegrate Kate incident for any longer than necessary. "You said your Emperor summoned me. How exactly did that work? All I remember is a weird light, and then I was... here."

Kate rolled her eyes. "He told you to come, and you had to come. How do you think He did it, by waving His arms and chanting 'Hocus Pokerus'?"

James looked justifiably terrified.

"Bad mental image, huh?" said Kate, completely misreading his expression. "Sorry, I come up with a lot of those too." (Brucie squawked what sounded like it could have been the dragonbird translation of "Behave yourself!" into Kate's ear.) "Or are you just scared silly of little ol' me?"

James stiffened even more, and Kate realized to her horror that she'd accidentally put on a fake Southern accent, something which James no doubt would associate with Jessiebelle. She'd watched plenty of the Pokemon DVDs in the World Tree's library to anticipate his coming. "Well, I'm not likely to bite your head off, if that's what you're wondering, so you can relax, honestly. Like you've never seen a krahka before."

_SQUAWK! ("Of course he hasn't, you idiot! He just got here!")_

That was Brucie.

James, of course, didn't understand _or_ care. "No, um, Kate, I've never seen a – what? A cracker? A crackle? What's that?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "Krah-KA. A biomechanical shapeshifter, and I just so happen to be one. We used to be greater in number, but the Visorak nearly wiped us all out a few thousand years ago. I'm one of the only ones left."

"Is a Visorak anything like a Spinarak?"

"Actually, yes. Yes it is. Except Visorak are also biomechanical beings, and their venom mutates people into monsters." Kate's voice grew sad. "All but a few of my people were captured and bound in their webs. I got lucky – if you could call it that. I escaped, but not without..." She looked sadly at Brucie. "...consequences."

_SQUAWK! ("You calling ME a consequence?")_

"No offense, Brucie. You're one of the best consequences I've ever met." The krahka scratched her Archeops-look-alike right under its beak. "Who's the cutest little Nivawk in the Pandimensionality? Who's the cutest little Nivawk? You are! YES YOU ARE!"

_PURRRRRRRRR._

James decided not to ask what a Nivawk was, since that would involve drawing attention to himself. Brucie may have had a cute name, but James wanted to keep his ears together on the sides of his head where they belonged, not in some creature's belly. And anyway, Krahka and Nivawk and Visorak? What sort of Pokemon were those? WERE they Pokemon?

"I am curious, though, about what was going on at your end when the summoning happened," Kate said offhandedly to James. "Anything interesting going on in your world?"

"Oh brother." James really, REALLY didn't want to go into it. "Let's just say that we'd just escaped from what could have been the beating of our life by a trio of Unova Legendaries who were uber ticked off at humanity. The weather was so horrible, Jessie swore she saw Tornadus and Thundrus battling with each..."

And James broke off talking abruptly as his brain went into Full Panic Mode.

"Jessie! Meowth! WHERE ARE THEY? What if those Legendaries caught up with them? What if-"

Yamask slapped its mask over James' face again, shushing its trainer. (This was unnecessary for communication with the presence of Latias to translate Poke-speak, but Yamask was more interested in keeping James quiet than in saying something itself.) James tried to scream, but Yamask imposed its will over James' own, keeping the panicky human under its control.

Kate and Brucie stared at the sight for a few moments, wondering if they should get involved (and, in Brucie's case, if he should point out that at least HE was better behaved than that ghost-type). Suddenly, Kate stretched her arm over three times its length in a sudden grab and yanked the mask clean off James' face, then whacking the Yamask in its own ghostly noggin with it. Oddly enough, the mask seemed to actually do some damage, leaving Yamask a bit stunned.

Brucie and Celebi burst into giggles (Latias was not amused). James quickly rubbed the residual ectoplasm off his face, then turned angrily towards Yamask and yelled, "Don't EVER do that to me AGAIN!" as he sent the troublesome Pokemon back into its Poke-ball.

Kate then realized that she was still holding the mask. "Um, this may be a stupid question, but do you want this back?"

"Toss it overboard," James muttered. Sure, he knew from experience how attached Yamask were to their masks, but if HIS Yamask was going to abuse it, it was going to lose it.

"You're sure? Because if you'd asked, we could have washed it off for you in that Pool and purified it. Don't know what effect Living Water would have on a Yamask or its mask, though. Maybe we should have checked that out when we..." Kate started to ramble, completely forgetting who she was even talking to. It wasn't until James had stared pointedly at her for three minutes straight that she realized that she'd gone off on a tangent, and when she did, she literally blushed bright crimson. All over her body. Even her eyes and fur turned red. (James, who had almost forgotten that Kate was a shapeshifter, was startled nearly out of his wits by this, and would have fallen over in his seat if Latias hadn't caught hold of him.)

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, and repeating the question James had already answered, asked, "Do you still want this mask back?"

James grabbed it and threw it over the side of the pod... only to have it land on the library floor with a wooden THUNK.

They'd finally made it back to the "surface rooms," although that could have been inaccurate, since this was clearly a different room of the library (the first room hadn't had a cable pod station) and could have been anywhere, even inside a different tree for all James knew. There were still plenty of books, scrolls, tapes, data cards, and other media lining the naturally-grown shelves, but this room had carpets of thick moss growing in vaguely geometric shapes along the living (and well-polished) hardwood floor. It was also much larger and had other clientele, none of which were species that James recognized as any sort of possible Pokemon or Pokemorph. Other-worlders, James guessed (correctly). Fortunately, none of them bore any resemblance to a Spinarak, which meant that Kate's enemies probably hadn't tailed her to this tree.

James shook his head, trying to remember what he'd been whining about before Yamask had masked him. Figuring that he'd probably get in trouble for littering a sinister ghostly artifact in such a place as this, he stepped out of the seed pod and picked up the mask...

...and before he could say "Roggenrola," some quick-fingered Deerling-morph-creature that had been lurking in the shadows snatched it from James' hands and ran off with it, leaving the human trainer completely flabbergasted.

Kate probably could have stopped the pickpocket cold in its tracks, but apparently she had a delayed reflex, because it was a few moments before she said, "Oh, I'm sorry. Is this a stupid question, or should I get that back for you?" (The two Psychic-types simply stood back and rolled their eyes, already knowing the answer to THAT question.)

James himself was torn between his relief that the mask was no longer his problem, concern at how Yamask would react to losing its former face, and the utmost (if undeserved) sympathy for whoever the poor fool was who'd thought he'd just gotten away with something. With some regret, James finally released Yamask, explained the situation, and watched as the very angry Ghost-type set off to avenge itself on the robber (James had made it very clear that it was NOT to do anything permanent, just scare the crap out of it) with Brucie and Celebi following from behind to make sure nothing truly disastrous happened.

Which meant that James was alone with Kate and Latias, and he wasn't quite sure which one of them was in charge. He sure hoped the Emperor had known what He was doing.

**Next Chapter: We and James FINALLY find out what's happened to Jessie and Meowth... or not. Don't you hate cliffhangers?**


	13. My Little Ponyta?

Chapter Thirteen

"Are you SURE you know where we're going?"

Kate rolled her eyes. She was now in a Latias form, speeding invisibly alongside Latias herself, who had James on her back and was likewise invisible. Why they'd bothered turning invisible, Kate wasn't quite sure – after all, it was just the World Tree, where access came by invitation only – but James had been kind of paranoid after Yamask's mask was stolen by whatever that blue Deerling creature was.

"Sure I'm sure," she replied. "I know Yggdrasil like I know the back of my paw."

"And you're the only one who knows the back of your paw, because it's always shifting into a wing or a hoof or a fin," Latias joked. "So if anyone knows this place, you do, right?"

"Well, it IS my home now. And I've worked here for several thousand years or so."

James wasn't sure he'd heard that right. "Several THOUSAND—"

"Here we are!" said Latias, pulling into a full stop (and metaphorically launching James' heart squarely into his stomach with a wet _plunk_). The trainer hadn't had much time to take in the surroundings while riding her (Latias had been going roughly twice the speed of a Lear jet, and now James' chin-length lavender-blue hair was a total mess), but now that he was _there_, he could afford a look around the new chamber while he tried to slow his heart rate a little.

Given his new surroundings, that was actually pretty easy. James and his shape-shifting companions were apparently in a grotto _grown_ within the World Tree, with pools of water gathered within knotholes and other indentations in the wood. Flowers and mosses grew everywhere, and many of the pools were covered with emerald green algae on their surfaces. The place smelled fragrant and alive, like a forest after it rains. James half expected to see a rainbow come through the knothole windows from which the same diluted green sunlight pored that had illuminated the outdoors of the Between, but none did.

What James DID see was a shiny Suicune and an oddly purplish Blitzle stooped in front of one of the pools of water, energy radiating from their respective horns (was the lightning-bolt-shaped protrusion from the Blitzle's mane truly a horn, or just a hairstyle, James wondered). Energy came from both, and instantly the green algae cleared as a glimmering fish unlike any James had seen before did a double flip out of the pool and landed back into it with a large splash.

"Well done, Twilight," said the Suicune, and James was surprised to find that although the Suicune spoke in Poke-speak, he could understand it completely. The Blitzle merely nodded nervously.

"Of course you can understand us here," the Suicune spoke out to James, even though James hadn't said anything and hadn't even been aware that the Legendary Beast knew of his presence. "My power makes all things possible." And as James looked into His eyes, he realized that they were the eyes of Aslan.

"Are you Spirit?" James asked, breathless. It made sense, since Spirit was the one said to have purified the Pool down by the roots of the tree. And He _felt_ like a **Spirit** – the name almost fit Him like a Poke-ball. But a single word was clearly too small to define Him; was This really the same Spirit?

"I am," said the Suicune. "And you are Jameson Morgan Kojiro. You have done well on making it this far. Many beings turn tail and run when confronted with the darkness they have welcomed into their lives."

"Not me," said James blithely, as if that moment hadn't been the exact worst moment of his existence. "I don't even HAVE a tail."

Spirit chuckled. "You do have a sense of humor, though. That is good." The Suicune bowed its head slightly. "You're going to need it on your quest."

James was confused. "Quest?" That didn't sound so good. "I just want to get back to my friends in Unova and make sure they're okay... if that's all right with You," he added nervously.

Spirit nodded. "That is exactly the quest I meant."

Finally the purple Blitzle spoke up. "Um, if you don't mind me asking, sir..." she said nervously, pawing at the ground with one hoof, "what... ARE you?"

James was so surprised at the question that Kate had to answer it for him. "He's a human, of course," she said. "Did you think he was a Magikarp?"

"YIPPEE!" yelled a voice from above. Everyone present immediately looked up to find the very last thing any of them expected: a hot pink Ponyta (extremely hot, given her flaming mane and tail) _sitting on the ceiling_ _as if it were the floor_.

"I told you humans existed, Twilight Blitzle!" yelped the Ponyta happily. "You owe me five bags of sugar cubes!"

Twilight Blitzle groaned. "Please let me apologize. That's my friend Pinky Pie Ponyta up there. She's kind of... unpredictable."

Pinky Pie Ponyta, as if suddenly remembering the existence of gravity, promptly plunged plunk into the purified pool, causing an enormous wave of steam to wash over the entire group of beings. Once the steam cleared, Pinky Pie merely climbed out of the pool as if nothing whatsoever was wrong, with her mane and tail still burning with bright pink flames that were completely undimmed from the drop in the drink. She paused, gagged, then coughed up the same glimmering fish James had seen earlier, launching it back into the now ash-filled pool of water.

Everyone present shuddered at the thought of this particular Pokemon getting hyped up on sugar. Even Spirit.

Pinky, meanwhile, ran straight up to James and started shaking him warmly by the hand with her hoof (a little TOO warmly; the heat was somewhat uncomfortable). "You exist! You exist! Thanks for existing, Mr. Human!"

The other shoe – or horseshoe – had officially dropped. As such, James predictably freaked out, rushing toward what seemed the safest and sanest being in the room: Spirit. Scrambling on Spirit's back (He didn't seem to mind or even be startled), James babbled "I think I'm almost ready for that quest now! Just get _**her**_ away from me!"

"You wish to escape the confusion you know for the danger you do not know?"

James could recognize Spirit's wisdom, but didn't want to admit it. "If I'm going to suffer insanity, I'd rather suffer it with people I know, thank-you-very-much-Sir!"

"Be still, James. Let me calm you." A low, sweet humming sound came from Spirit's throat, and Jameson Morgan Kojiro felt his heartbeat slow down to a reasonable rate. "Breathe slowly, James. Trust Me. Are you all right now?"

He _was_, that was the funny thing. "I'm okay, Sir. And... thank you." He paused. "I do trust You. But I don't want You to leave."

"I never will," Spirit assured him. "I may not be with you in this physical form, but My Spirit will now reside in you for as long as you will it, forever and always."

"Whoa, ponies," put in Pinky Pie. "If that was anyone other than God, that would have been REAAAAAAALLY creepy."

Twilight gave Pinky Pie a very dirty look. "Pinky! Be respectful!"

Spirit laughed. "At ease, Twilight. She is correct, of course. There are other spirits out there, none as powerful or benevolent as Myself, but many far less so."

"Speaking of spirits," said Latias, "I wonder how Yamask is doing?"

Oh no, James thought. I'm losing people and Pokemon left and right here, aren't I? But no one seemed more alarmed than Spirit, who clearly knew exactly where James' Yamask was and obviously didn't like what He knew.

"Hold on tight," Spirit instructed James, who was still clinging to his back. "This is going to be a very swift trip."

**So, we'll have to wait a little longer to see what's happened to Jessie and Meowth... don't you hate cliffhangers?**


	14. James Gives Up The Ghost

**A/N: Mikaela, we'll just have to see who gets killed here...**

**Note: Pokemon characters/species are copyright Game Freak/Nintendo. Neopets characters and elements featured beginning in this chapter are © NeoPets, Inc. Oh, and Twilight Blitzle and Pinky Pie Ponyta from the last chapter are, pretty obviously, parodies of Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie from Hasbro's _My Little Pony_ series. Originally, they were going to be the literal Twilight and Pinkie from Equestria, but I realized that it would be funnier if they were from the Poke-world equivalent of Equestria – plus that gave me the (sadly wasted) opportunity to reveal that James was a shameless "bronyta."**

Chapter Fourteen

When Spirit said _swift_, He clearly meant it. James was at the scene of the crime long before he even realized they were moving. It was as if reality itself had moved _for_ them while they were merely standing still, which, for all James knew, could have been precisely what happened. No one knew the ways of God.

They appeared to be inside some sort of museum-like section of the Tree, judging from the various strange artifacts and treasures prominently displayed in transparent, illuminated rock-crystal cases. James didn't have time to take in any of the sights, though, because his attention was focused on only one thing: not the two Poke-morph-like creatures tangled up in vines (one of whom was exactly the same blue "Deerling morph" that had swiped Yamask's mask), nor the all-too-familiar Celebi giving them the evil eye; no, James' attention was fixed on two pathetic puddles of melting ectoplasm that clearly had once been –

"MY YAMASK!" James screamed, absolutely devastated. "WHO DID THIS TO MY YAMASK?"

"It attacked us!" yelled the second Poke-morph-like creature, an orange Liepard- or Persian-like female. "It and that other Petpet," she added, glaring at Celebi. "And we hadn't done anything wr-"

"It was all my fault!" yelled the infamous blue Deerling, cutting in on his partner's explanation. It was pretty clear that he was suddenly deeply upset, not with James or even the late Yamask, but with himself. "You want the mask? I'll bet that's what you're after, isn't it? It's in the bag. Just take it! Take whatever else you want out of it – take ME if you want – but don't hurt Brynneth! She's innocent of all this!"

James was barely listening as he knelt before the rapidly dissolving form of his beloved Ghost-type Pokemon. "Celebi, you can restore it, right? RIGHT?"

Celebi shook her head, and for the first time, James heard her speak out loud and understood it completely. "No, James. I can't."

"WHAT?" James yelled, staring at Celebi as if to shoot psychic daggers into her bulblike head. "Fine, then bring me back in time to stop this from happening! Anything! IT'S MY POKEMON!"

Celebi looked sadly at the floor. "Yamask was already a ghost, James. Her purpose here-" -and this was the first time James ever realized that his Yamask was a girl- "-has been fulfilled. She has gone back to her eternal home, with Aslan."

"Home?" James asked between his tears.

Spirit spoke up for Celebi. "My own country, the Substancelands, of which all other worlds are but a shadow." He spoke quietly and somberly. "I know how you feel, Jameson. I felt the same way the day Aslan was killed. But it was only for a time." His voice remained quiet, yet strong. "You WILL meet her again, James. All mortal beings must die and face judgment, and you belong to the Emperor now, as she did. But it is right for you to be sad."

"Yeah, cut the philosophy here and just get this over with, okay?" the Deerling interrupted despite having broken into a cold sweat. "I mean, not to disrespect the dead, but I'd rather not be kept hanging here, if you get my drift. Are you gonna off me or not?"

"HANSO!" the orange cat-creature – Brynneth – yelled in horror. "You are absolutely incorrigible! Are you TRYING to get yourself killed again?"

"There's a pretty huge difference between being killed and petrified, honey," Hanso retorted, apparently taking his rapidly approaching possible demise with at least _some_ measure of stride. Celebi didn't have to be Psychic-type to realize that this being had been in rougher spots before – although what could possibly be rougher than coming between a Team Rocket agent and his Pokemon in a lethal way, she sure didn't know.

James' head snapped up from Yamask's final resting place, and his emerald eyes stared coldly through the furry blue thief, who promptly withered beneath James' glare. It took all the effort the Trainer had not to grab the weapon lying at his feet – some sort of silver sword with strange runes carved in the blade, runes that he could probably translate with Spirit's help if he had the time – and see how deep he could go into the vines that held Hanso before he drew blood.

And then maybe just keep going.

Hanso's orange eyes were filled with a mixture of courage and dread; obviously he cared too much for his friend to let her take the blame for his mistake, but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't terrified for his life. James, oddly enough, was familiar with that emotional combination; he got something like that nearly every time he looked at Jessie, particularly after something in one of their "brilliant schemes" had inevitably gone wrong. But that didn't change the fact that his Yamask was gone and that Hanso had claimed responsibility.

James' fists clenched; his breathing was hard, rapid, and almost labored. _Easy, you little Poke-napper, you,_ he thought to himself. _If Celebi can forgive me for causing HER death, I can forgive – what's his name? Hansel? Whatever. Emperor OverSea, whatever I do, PLEASE don't let it be something I regret the rest of my life._

He had the feeling that no matter what he did, he was bound to regret it anyway.

When James finally spoke, it was with a calculated evenness that did not at all match the turmoil he still felt in his shattered heart. Without Yamask, he technically had no Pokemon on hand, which led to him devising what he felt would be the ultimate punishment for What's-His-Name. James' voice was, if not as cold as ice, as cold at least as ice water. "So you said I could take you if I wanted."

It wasn't a question.

Brynneth looked at Hanso in alarm, clearly remembering what the blue "Deerling" (he was actually an Ixi, a goatlike species of Neopet) seemed to have forgotten. Hanso feigned innocence, almost masking his obvious relief. "Did I say that?"

James started to (very) carefully cut Hanso loose with the sword, one vine at a time. "Consider that offer accepted. No need to thank me; you're sure to regret it. And no funny business, got it? I'll be keeping a _very_ close eye on you."

"Yeah, I'm flattered," Hanso muttered sarcastically as he wriggled free. "Note to self: never try make a deal with a human with lavender-blue hair and a pet shadow wraith. I'll be watching YOU even closer."

"Hanso, this is ridiculous!" yelled Brynneth, still tied up. James hesitated before attempting to free her; what if she tried to attack him as well? "How can you TRUST this man? He's..."

"I think the word you're looking for is _stark-raving-looney_," Hanso jibed. More seriously, he whispered "I can handle him, Brynn. If he was really that evil, he'd have offed me already."

"Xandra was that evil, and _she_ gave you a second chance."

"Her mistake. I petrified Xandra, remember? I'll be fine."

"So that's it?" Brynneth almost shouted, shaking her vine cocoon so that it was difficult for James to cut her free without at least nicking her (Spirit helped free her with His horn). "You're just going off with some strange human you know nothing about, who has at least two very good reasons to hold a grudge against you?"

"Oh, I won't be alone," said Hanso brightly. "Knowing you, you'll come along with me whether any of us wants you to or not. Right?"

Celebi, who knew the answer, giggled to herself. "_Bii bii bii bii!_ He's right, of course. I'm a Psychic-type. I can tell these things."

Brynn leapt free of her now-shredded cocoon and turned towards Celebi, then towards James, then towards Spirit. Everyone was surprised to see that Spirit was nodding sagely – James might not have recognized it, but it had been His idea all along. Spirit, the Ultimate Translator, had a way of speaking to people in ways that they didn't always even recognize. (If He was speaking to Hanso, which He most likely was, the Ixi seemed to be resisting; he couldn't bring himself to look the Suicune in the eye. James wondered about that.)

"Oh, one more thing," James said, almost a bit too casually. "I've got something for you."

Hanso's eyes brightened for one mischievous second, then narrowed in suspicion. "Should I run from it?"

James wordlessly pulled out a small round object that Hanso didn't recognize. "Oh, this won't hurt you or anything. Just..." He grinned evilly as he tossed the object towards Hanso. "Catch!"

"Oh, for me? You shouldn't h- AUGH!"

Brynneth made a grab for her runic sword at Hanso's sudden vanishing in a flash of light, but Spirit reassured her, "It's just a Pokeball. It's much bigger on the inside than on the outside. Don't worry, your friend is completely unharmed."

Brynneth didn't seem convinced, so James let Hanso back out for a moment to prove Spirit's words. The Ixi gave him a deeply scathing look, then became the very picture of injured dignity, brushing the dust off himself dramatically as he got up off the floor. "Gee, thanks. You REALLY shouldn't have."

Before James could come up with any snappy retorts, Spirit teleported them back to the grotto full of pools, where Kate, Latias, and the "ponies" (Twilight Blitzle and Pinkie Pie Ponyta) were waiting.

It was time to brief the heroes on their mission.

**Okay, this time we're REALLY going to see what's happened to Jessie and Meowth in the next chapter. How will the shockwaves from Meowth's V attack affect Jessie and Darkat's attempts to escape the Rebel Underground?**


	15. Left Hanging

**A/N: While this chapter DOES touch up on Jessie's fate, sadly, I was unable to get to Meowth's in detail yet due to an unexpected cliffhanger. (Even I didn't see the plot twist at the end of this chapter coming, but it simply HAD to happen.) So, in the next chapter, I will TRY to finally answer the question of whether or not Meowth will fall to his doom. Cliffhangers can be killers sometimes (no pun intended).**

**I hope my writing for Hanso in the previous chapter hasn't been completely off the wall... but he's such an odd character to place. In the Faerie's Ruin plot, you could never quite tell whose side he was on (he'd probably answer "My own" if you asked him) because he'd always be doing something unexpected in his own cheeky way. I thought putting James and Hanso in the same story would be quite interesting, because they're both "chaotic neutral" thieves (with blue hair, no less), but Hanso is extremely competent and James is extremely... NOT. Add in a wrongfully slain Yamask, and you've got a truly disturbing combination that only God truly knows where it will go. I can't WAIT to get THIS story finished!**

Chapter Fifteen

"So, did you find your Yamask?" Kate asked cheerfully as Spirit, James, and the rest of the motley (and unlikely) crew tesseracted in.

If looks could have killed, they would have. "I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT," James growled, not even looking the Krahka in the eyes. This had easily been the longest day of his life, and at that precise moment, it seemed like the worst.

Kate, absolutely clueless as to Yamask's fate, shrunk back in fear of James' temper. "What'd I say?" she asked. Then she noticed the Neopets. "Oh, hey! Hanso and Brynneth!" Obviously she recognized them from somewhere, probably their own homeworld. "Fancy meeting you two here! And with James, too! How have you been getting along?"

More deadly looks, this time from all three beings mentioned.

Brucie turned to Kate and squawked in Nivawk language, _Um, I could be wrong, but something tells me that there's bad blood between them._

Kate squawked back in the same language (not wanting to embarrass any of her **friends**, who were now giving the deadly looks **to each other**), _I don't think you're wrong._

Spirit, in His wisdom, decided not to translate this.

Brynneth rolled her eyes. "We had a bit of a, shall we say, _fatal misunderstanding_, thanks to SOMEONE-" she glared daggers at Hanso "-deciding to steal first and ask questions later." The Liepard-like Brynneth – a Kougra, to use the Neopian species term – was currently _trying_ to act as mediator to keep more blood from being spilled. Probably out of guilt, since she was after all the one who had held the sword. (In her defense, she'd already had some traumatic experiences with shadow creatures that bore a slight resemblance to Yamask attempting to take over her homeworld – that was the time when Hanso had wound up petrifying himself completely on purpose. Don't ask. It's a bit of a tale.)

Hanso looked as if he actually _wanted_ to hide inside his new Pokeball for a few thousand years or so.

"Fatal?" Kate gasped. "Um, please tell me that's a metaphor."

They told her that it wasn't.

"You WHAT?" Kate burst out at Hanso and Brynneth after hearing the whole story. "Brynneth, you ought to know that Aslan would never, EVER allow shadow wraiths into the Between, yet alone the World Ash Tree! Not after the Jadis incident, at least!" She turned to Spirit angrily. "And how could YOU let this happen? You're GOD!"

Spirit matched her stare, not saying a word. It wasn't a cruel stare, just a quiet, remember-who-made-you-and-know's-what's-best-for-you stare with equal measures of wisdom and compassion. Finally He spoke. "James' Yamask friend is now very happy to be with Aslan, and to be human again, now that her mission here has been completed. Have you ever considered what life as a Yamask was like from _her_ point of view? And yet she accepted it to help James find his way here, and discover his true calling for good."

Kate blushed, realizing Spirit was right. As a shapeshifter, she'd never actually thought about the concept of what it's like for a human being to be _permanently_ turned into a shadowy blob of ecto–

"HEY!" James yelled suddenly, coming to a very disturbing realization. "My Yamask was a girl, and she glomped my face!"

Spirit and Celebi burst out laughing at exactly the same time. Kate, temporarily forgetting her sorrow, actually _smirked_. "Um, yeah, she DID tell me you were really cute..."

James wrung his hands as if he himself could've killed Yamask right then and there. "That little... I don't believe this! And she ate my bottle cap collection, too!" He broke into sobs, realizing once again that Yamask was gone. "I'll never get over her..."

Spirit comfortingly headbutted James, ever careful not to injure the human with His horn. Whispering things that only He and James ever heard, they shared a moment together.

Hanso, trying to ignore Spirit's presence (which still unnerved him), turned to Brynneth. "Please tell me you didn't go this hysterical when I got turned to stone. I mean, I know I'm awesome and all and you hated to see me go, but still, that's kind of embarrassing."

Brynn kept her mouth shut. She had to. But that didn't make it easy.

After an awkward silence, Twilight Blitzle spoke up, hoping she wasn't being a bother. "Excuse me, sir, but your friend Kate told me you were looking for two more friends of yours, and we should probably check up on them before..."

Given previous circumstances, no one waited for (or cared to wait for) Twilight to finish the sentence. "You're right," said Latias, who was no stranger to loss. "That's why we came to the scrying pools, right? To check up on them, _right?_" James began to wonder if Latias was actually more concerned about his friends than he was himself, but he quickly reminded himself that that couldn't be possible.

"Right," said Kate. To try to get her mind off what had happened to Yamask, she quipped, "But don't forget that afterwards, we still have to change Jamie here out of his Team Rocket duds and into something a bit more flattering."

Everyone stared at Kate as if to say, _I_ _can't_ _believe_ _you_ _just_ _said_ _that_ _RIGHT_ _NOW_.

"_Jamie?_" James squawked almost inaudibly. Holy Mew, this "Krahka" creature couldn't _possibly_ be in her right mind.

Kate turned herself into a puddle of sparkly purple goo and shrunk in embarrassment.

Twilight Blitzle laughed nervously. "Right then. And without further ado..." She bent her head down low to the pool, and her "horn" (which, James now noted, truly WAS a part of her mane, all grown and fused together – perhaps by electrical charges, which James was all too familiar with the long-term effects of, on hair or otherwise) glowed purple with sparks of electrical magic. Twilight's entire body took up the glow, and the Blitzle then tapped her pool's surface lightly with her right hoof, causing tiny ripples of magic to spread throughout the pool from top to bottom. There was a flash of bright light, and the pool became the magical equivalent of a holographic image, depicting Jessie.

Actually, it was depicting Jessie, Woobat, and a certain talking Purrloin in some underground tunnel, facing off against a very, very ticked-off-looking shiny Rhyperior.

Maybe the Rhyperior was only ticked off at the very rude poem that Jessie was shouting at him:

"If you've got any sense of fear

You'd better flee away from here,

Unless you want your entrails plastered

All over the walls, you filthy -"

The last two syllables were completely unprintable. Even Hanso cringed.

James blushed bright red. "I'm sorry about this – it must be _that_ _time_ _of_ _month_ again..." (Although, privately, James wondered if Jessie's "that time of month" happened _four_ weeks a month.)

Then the Rhyperior spoke in a booming voice that, of course, Spirit was able to translate.

"**Nobody,"** boomed the vicious-looking Pokemon, **"calls Titan Rhyperior** **ANYTHING** **that rhymes with 'plastered'!"**

At this, James' face turned from rose red to bone white. "Titan...?" he whispered, clearly recognizing the name from somewhere. (Somewhere a little too close for comfort, Hanso noted, so he filed that information away for future reference. After all, if he was going to escape from that weird human dude with the lavender-blue hair that had sucked him into some sort of Black Hole Mote, he needed as much information as possible. Hanso's Rule Number One was: A good thief always has a contingency plan or two, even if he has to make them up on the very spot.)

But both James' and Hanso's thoughts were interrupted when they saw, through the pool, a horrible tremor shake the very foundation of the cave walls surrounding Jessie and her Pokemon friends. Even Titan Rhyperior screamed several Poke-speak expletives as the earth split beneath them all, sending all three of the groundbound ones (Woobat was excluded, being able to fly) plummeting down a deep, gaping crack in the tortured earth.

"JESSIE!" James yelled, and without another thought, he plunged into the scrying pool as if he thought he could travel back to his homeworld with such a simple gesture.

Much to everyone's horror (except, of course, for Hanso's), James did indeed do so.

Which meant that James soon found himself plummeting to certain death alongside his female friend, _her_ female (feline) friend, and their Rhyperior tormentor.

And meanwhile, somewhere even deeper within the Rebel Underground, Meowth was hanging for its life from a rock face that could shake itself loose at any moment.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	16. Just Thought I'd Drop In

**Okay, hands up. Who already forgot about Mongoose and Primal Banette? (raises own hand sheepishly) Well, here's to getting the runaway plot back on track! (And, yes, James does still have his jetpack from BW on, although Jessie doesn't have hers because it was confiscated by Titan. Apparently he missed her Poke-belt, though.)**

**Thanks for the review, whoever you were; unfortunately, right now I don't have time or energy to read all the reviews I've suddenly gotten. Or, more accurately, I don't have the nerve; I've got this fear that the reviews are all going to be harsh ones and trample my fragile writer's ego, which is a foolish phobia but unfortunately still possible. So I'm planning on taking these reviews slowly, as I write each individual story. (Oh, and speaking of stories, I've got maybe half of the next chapter in Jessie's Christmas Carol written up, and I just need to finish it before I can post it – and I've got everything up to chapter three of Pokemon Max Revive: Origins of Love pre-written already – I'm just trying to pace myself on what I post when. This will give me some time to work on my OTHER, non-fanfic projects... I've got maybe eight projects going at once! Ho boy.**

Chapter Sixteen

As Mongoose searched through the Rebel Underground for his friend Darkat, he found her in the most unexpected way possible.

He'd heard of the expression "raining Purrloins and Lillipups" before, but he'd never believed it could actually happen until the impact of Meowth's V-attack hit. Not only was Darkat falling, but she was joined by Titan Rhyperior (good riddance, thought Mongoose; that one needed killing) and some human woman that Mongoose only recognized as a former diner patron because no other woman could possibly have that much hair (even if it now looked like it had been through an electric field and then dragged through a dirty cave tunnel by somebody's teeth, which was about right).

Fortunately, Mongoose was on a sturdy stone ledge, just far enough away from the falling Pokemon; this was also fortunate for those falling, since Mongoose did after all still have his knife. However, Mongoose nearly dropped the knife when he saw another human being, one he didn't recognize (but who was dressed in a similar outfit to the wild hair woman) come clear out of nowhere to catch Jessie.

Mongoose knew she had to be named Jessie, because that was what the other human had called her as he'd caught her in his arms, then activated some sort of jetpack to pull her to safety. Much to Mongoose's surprise, however, the male human not only seemed to recognize Titan, but was actually attempting to save HIM as well. Mongoose was simply incapable of comprehending both these facts in tandem.

Titan, as everybody in the Rebel Underground knew, was a bully and a murderer, and anyone who'd ever heard a quarter of what Mongoose had heard would have been perfectly happy to leave the Rhyperior to a horrible fate. Besides, no human being could possibly lift a life-size Rhyperior without use of a Heavy Ball, which seemed to be precisely what this human was attempting to do.

It was impossible for a human, but not for a shapeshifter.

The ripple in reality that the second human had come through opened again, and a winged speeding _something_ darted by and actually morphed itself into a heavy-duty cargo airplane _around_ Titan. The Rhyperior, naturally, had no idea what was happening, and clearly believed he was under attack; the airplane struggled to stay flying while it took damage from within, and Mongoose could have sworn that the plane itself was screaming in agony. Then, quite suddenly, the plane apparently decided it had had enough, morphed itself away from Titan, and turned into an oddly-patterned glowing disk that instead caught Titan from underneath.

_Levitation_ _disk_, Mongoose heard a telepathic voice speak. _They_ _make_ _them_ _in_ _Metru_ _Nui,_ _an_ _island_ _city_ _in_ _my_ _homeworld._ There was a pause. _At_ _least,_ _they_ _**used**_ _to_ _make_ _them_ _in_ _Metru_ _Nui,_ _before_ _my_ _world_ _was..._ _destroyed,_ _sort_ _of._ It sounded like the voice was speaking to someone else, but it was broadcasting itself far enough that Mongoose could pick up on it. After a pause, it said, _Of_ _course_ _I_ _can_ _morph_ _inorganic_ _objects,_ _Jamie_ – _I'm_ _bio-mechanical,_ _for_ _Mata_ _Nui's_ _sake._ _Any_ _requests_ _when_ _we_ _get_ _done_ _with..._ _oh,_ _an_ _ice-cream_ _sandwi-_ _JAMES!_ _That's_ _my_ _BODY_ _we're_ _talking_ _about!_ _I_ _don't_ _know_ _what_ _I_ _did_ _to_ _you_ _that_ _I've_ _purposely_ _forgotten,_ _but_ _it_ _couldn't_ _possibly_ _have_ _been_ _THAT_ _bad!_

It was so bizarre, Mongoose almost fell off the ledge in shock. However, the thoughts of falling made him realize that some glowing force was suspending the entire motley assortment of oddballs in midair (or, at least, mid-tunnel). This was from Twilight Blitzle, who was nearly killing herself with Telekinesis but thankfully helped and sustained by Spirit – of course Mongoose had no way of knowing that. All he knew was that his dear friend Darkat was also caught up in mid-tunnel midair, and thank Arceus, she was able to leap off of "Jamie's" head and onto Mongoose's ledge.

One quick Helping Hand later, and Mongoose and Darkat were reunited, and the entire rest of the odd crew (Titan included) appeared to have completely vanished into whatever that odd ripple in the fabric of reality was.

"Mongoose?" Darkat said in shock. "Please tell me I've been dreaming."

Mongoose was a creature of few words, but only one seemed appropriate here: the true one. _"No."_

Darkat did not blame herself one bit for fainting dead away.

Meowth was unaware of all of this. Still clinging doggedly to the rock face, he racked his brains to figure out exactly what he was going to do to get himself out of this, and how exactly he had gotten himself into this in the first place. As his feline mind worked a mile a minute, Meowth came to what he thought was an important realization: none of this could possibly be actually happening; thus, he must be dreaming.

And a sure-fire way to wake oneself from dreaming... is to dream about falling.

So Meowth let go of the rock.


	17. Titan's Past

Chapter Seventeen

Meowth let go of the rock, instantly realizing what a fatal mistake this was, but it was too late to do anything about it, because he was plummeting into a dark oblivion. Whatever this HeartGold thing was that he supposedly had, it certainly wasn't doing him any good now.

Or was it?

As Meowth screamed for help, believing no one could hear him, someone did.

SomeTHING did.

A black shadow flashed across the bottomless chasm, completely enveloping Meowth in its clutches and "saving" him from an untimely demise. Even if there had been someone to see it, they wouldn't have; it was far too dark to distinguish the seemingly cape-shrouded figure from the darkness surrounding it.

Only what appeared to be a cape was actually the creature's entire body.

Meowth was in the clutches of the Primal Banette.

* * *

><p><p>

Upon his re-entry into the World Tree's scrying room, James could sense that he had a lot of explaining to do. Jessie was more shocked than anything else; Kate had collapsed into a puddle of purple again, this time out of exhaustion; and Titan Rhyperior –

– was suddenly and literally nose to nose (or drill to nose) with Jameson Morgan Kojiro, pinning him against the "wall" of the "room" with one horribly strong claw.

Gulp.

James' hand flew to his Poke-Belt – then he remembered that his one and only active "Pokemon" was a blue goatlike alien named Hanso who, James saw at a quick glance, was quickly edging as far away from James and his tormentor as possible. And knowing what Titan was probably about to do to James, James didn't really blame Hanso one iota.

* * *

><p><p>

Titan had been James' Pokemon once, back when it was a Rhyhorn. James had trained it alongside Growlie (his Growlithe) and Carnavalin (his Carnivine), but while Growlie and Valin always obeyed him, Titan was rebellious and far too violent for tournament standards. Titan didn't see opponents as living beings – he saw them as beings soon to not be living at all. His strategy was to eliminate the competition, literally.

Which had ultimately led to James permanently losing his battling license for causing a tournament fatality.

James had argued that it wasn't his fault, that he'd never intended real harm to any being, but the fact remained that Titan had mauled an innocent Bellossom to death while _technically_ following James' orders. The Ground-type move Bulldoze wasn't even supposed to be very effective against a Grass-type, which was exactly why James had ordered Titan to use it. But a fatality was a fatality, and James had permanently shamed his family name by such a dishonor.

That was the day that James determined that he would join Team Rocket, if only to be able to remain with his beloved Pokemon. Unwilling to have Titan put down, but realizing that the Rhyhorn could no longer stay in his Pokemon family, he'd made yet another horrible decision.

He decided to turn Titan in to Team Rocket... for experimentation.

* * *

><p><p>

James ground his teeth. He'd failed Titan, he'd failed Yamask... he'd failed his Weezing when he'd had no choice but to release it to protect it and a herd of Koffing. He'd failed his Cacnea when he couldn't teach it Drain Punch. And now, he was about to royally fail HIMSELF to certain death.

Two final thoughts blasted through his head – that Hanso might not be able to fight Titan (James didn't even know Hanso's moveset!), and that if Hanso tried to do so (which was rather unlikely), he'd probably get himself killed.

"Run, Hanso!" James yelled, as if it wasn't already obvious that Hanso was now doing exactly that. "Save yours-"

Then something blindingly obvious, something James should have seen coming a mile away but had forgotten all the clues to, occurred. What Titan hadn't known – and what James had forgotten – was that they were not the only beings in the room. As a matter of fact, they were not even the MAJORITY of beings in the room. And the actual majority of the beings in the room were much more likely to take James' side than Titan's side.

And One of them was a Deity.

An enormous wave of water rushed at Titan without any more warning then a mighty Roar from Spirit. Titan screamed in pain and horror, then his cry was drowned by the rushing waves entering his mouth. James screamed and curled into a fetal position, remembering his watery dimensional hop from merely a minute before. He heard several screams, most sounding female (of course, given the ratio of potential Mary Sues in that room) but one slightly more masculine; this one he took to be Hanso's. It wasn't _quite_ as masculine as James had expected, although he couldn't be one to judge; after all, James' _own_ scream hadn't been masculine in any sense of the word at all.

As the water drained away in a whirling rush, taking Titan – or perhaps at least his body – with it (James never knew which pool Titan was sucked into, nor did he seriously care enough to risk his own life to find out), James cautiously opened eyes he couldn't even remember closing, only to discover that he and most of his new friends were all perfectly dry. Hanso and Jessie, however, were absolutely sopping.

"Hey! Next time, give me a little warn-" Hanso started, but a stern glare and elbow from Brynneth put his manners back into place. "I mean, yeah, that was totally called for... SIR," he said, much more reverently, to Spirit (still unable to look Him in the eye). "Um... thanks for saving us all from the what-was-it-again, anyway?"

"Rhyperior," said Kate brightly, just as if she hadn't just survived an in-tree tsunami of God.

"Hyperion! Yeah, that. Thanks, um... okay, I take it from the fact that I don't recognize you at all that you must be that shapeshifter chick, right, Kate?"

Kate, who had transformed into a sentient oak tree during the tsunami, waved her branches and smiled through the vaguely human-like face on her trunk. "Guilty as charged. Though I'd be surprised if you recognized ANY of these oddball creatures here."

"Only the most oddball of them all, milady," Hanso replied with exaggerated courtesy, offering his still-dripping hand to the strange treelike creature.

Kate coughed into her leaves. "Um, Hanso?" She pointed to Brynneth, who was looking oddly put out at the attention Hanso was showing to the Krahka. "Methinks the lady protesteth."

"And what's THAT supposed to mean?" Brynneth asked blandly, giving Kate the stare-down.

Kate morphed into a small pink Jigglypuff-like creature with red shoes and tiny black eyes.

"Nothing, Brynneth. Nothing you need to worry about."

Hanso smirked. "Jealous, sweetheart?" he teased. He hadn't actually been dating Brynneth, but they _were_ really good friends... even if Brynn's job had been locking Hanso in Brightvale's prison cells for stealing and catching him again when he invariably, through no fault of her own, broke out again. Thankfully, Fyora, Neopia's Queen of the Faeries, had given them both something new to do in chasing down dangerous faerie artefacts so Fyora could safely destroy them. (Emphasis on _safely_, given what had happened to Hanso with the whole petrification incident.)

Kate turned into a silvery trickle of metallic liquid and surreptitiously slid away.

* * *

><p><p>

Jessie was about to bite James' head off over whatever had just happened to her when Titan had split them apart. She still wasn't quite sure what had caused the sudden typhoon that had swept that Rhyperior away, but just as she was looking for someone to blame, her eyes saw Him.

And they couldn't leave His face.

**A/N: I'm going to have to re-read/possibly re-edit the earlier chapters to properly prepare for the Grand Finale... the showdown between the heroes and the forces of evil that I've been only hinting at so far! Don't you just HATE this story? Well, maybe that's just me who hates it now; I _know_ how Primal Banette and Meowth are going to interact and how their encounter shapes the Big Final Mission that everybody's been drawn towards this entire time, I just don't know exactly how we're going to get there! I've been planning Primal Banette for a full YEAR – at LEAST! – and I still haven't gotten the chance to USE her because of all the other plates I have to keep spinning! Whoa... and THIS is why I need to re-read this entire story so far so I have a bead on where things are that I've forgotten. Pray with me and bear with me!**

**(P.S. I hope you don't hate it... but if you did, you wouldn't have read it this far... so I guess you must not. Humph. I hate overanalyzing things.)**


	18. The Primal Banette

Chapter Eighteen

It was Kate's job to escort James and Hanso to their temporary champers for a good "night's" rest (in the Between, it was always mid-afternoon, as its Source of light above the ultra-thick canopy of trees came directly from the Emperor Himself and was thus never changing). She didn't exactly enjoy it; she'd have rather eavesdropped on the intimate conversation between Spirit and Jessie (who was behaving as if He was the Father that she'd never known she had, which was correct in everything but the biological sense), but she'd been reprimanded a few hundred times for poking her various morphed olfactory organs into places where they didn't belong. After all, one reason she'd chosen the World Ash Tree as her place of residence and employment was because in all six thousand and six years of her existence, she'd always had an ear for information, which had sometimes been the only thing apart from Aslan that had saved her from an untimely fate.

Of course, by most beings' standards, the mere possibility of her having any sort of untimely fate was precluded by the fact that she was already six thousand and six years old.

James was a bit complain-ey that he still had no idea where Meowth was, but Spirit had made it very clear that Meowth's fate would be revealed AFTER everyone got a good night's sleep; Kate deeply suspected that if they knew it beforehand, they might not get any sleep at all, but she didn't tell that to James, who seemed to have figured that out on his own already and was not looking as if he was going to sleep well at all.

James and Hanso's lodgings were in a quaint little "knothole" in the World Ash Tree, with furniture grown right out of the tree itself. (James was both surprised and relieved to see that these included working toilets.) Once Kate had left, James "crashed" on a couch cushioned with thick moss and, despite his previous appearance to Kate, fell asleep instantly, unintentionally leaving Hanso completely unattended.

Hanso's first instinct was to pick James' pockets, then flee the area. So, of course, that was exactly what he tried to do.

The first part went without a hitch. Unfortunately (or fortunately), the World Tree itself appeared to be in on Hanso's plan. Robbing James was easy enough, but when Hanso tried to escape out the door, he found that thick, unmovable branches had grown across it, branches that simply regrew whenever Hanso used his dagger on them. The Ixi thief checked every window as well, but they were all too small to escape from.

Hanso was stuck.

* * *

><p><p>

Meowth's head was spinning as he tried to figure out his surroundings. All he saw was pitch blackness, blackness so thick, it seemed to have physical form. Meowth reached out a paw to try to get his bearings and brushed up against some sort of light, smooth fabric, similar to silk. Using his claws to grip it, Meowth –

– was promptly hurled across the room by some enormous THING with humongous, glowing, slit-pupiled, blood-red eyes.

"DO NOT SCRATCH MEEEEEE!"

"Sorry, lady! Sorry!" Meowth screeched, staring up in horror at an enormous face cut from living cloth, its fearsome red eyes mounted above a tarnished yet gleaming golden zipper mouth, zipped shut and leaking a horrible dark energy from between its teeth. The cloth both looked and smelled as moldy and disgusting as whatever that thing was that Meowth and his human friends had managed to steal from the back of Brawley's refrigerator that one time in Hoenn. (Only Wobbuffet had dared to eat it, and although it hadn't done him much harm, his breath had smelled like raw sewage for a week. Considering how often the big blue blob opened his jagged mouth, this was completely unforgivable.)

The Primal Banette loomed menacingly above the disguised Missingno, seemingly sniffing the air with a nose that was not there. "WHO ARE YOOOOOOOOOO, MISSINGNOOOOOOO...?"

Meowth was completely put off by this eerily hissed question uttered by this eerily huge, tassel-tailed, completely possessed living mountain of cloth and zipper. When he finally found his voice hiding deep within the pit of his stomach, the Missingno could barely speak with it.

"Um, lady... I kinda wish I knew."

"I WILL TELL YOOOOOOOOO WHO YOOOOOOOOO ARE..." Banette hissed, grabbing Meowth in its enormous arms and gripping so tight, it left cursed weave marks within the print of the Pokemon's fur. "YOOOOOOOOO ARE MIIIIIIIIINE!"

Meowth could barely even squeak a protest as a thick, dark cloud oozed between the giant Banette's tarnished zipper-teeth and completely enveloped him, reaching – and corrupting – Meowth's charm, the tarnished HeartGold.


End file.
